Marsha Norman Quotations

Knowing is the most profound kind of love, giving someone the gift of knowledge about yourself.

I have had an inordinate and painful concern for the audience in my writing career.

The theater is a communal event, like church. The playwright constructs a mass to be performed for a lot of people. She writes a prayer, which is really just the longings of one heart.

I'm who I was waiting for. I didn't make it.

Music expresses longing and love and joy better than any piece of dialogue you can ever write.

People listen to music with cavemen ears: Is it a bird song or the call of a lion? The audience at a musical is dancing in their hearts.

There are days when I think the National Endowment for the Arts should issue a quota system for the production of plays by women - especially when you realize women buy 70 percent of all theater tickets.

If someone wants to say 'I love you' in a straight play, they say it, and then it's the other person's turn to talk. But in a song, you can sing about it for another three minutes. The musical form has that unique opportunity to express at length what joy really feels like.

At the heart of the failure of most plays is the inability to carry on a thoughtful conversation about your work with yourself.

I feel that I speak the musical language.