Moss Hart Quotations

The theatre breeds its own kind of cruelty, and its sadism takes on a keener edge since it can be enjoyed under the innocent guise of critical judgment.

I have always understood the unbelieving look in the eyes of those whom success touches early - it is a look half fearful, as though the dream were still in the process of being dreamed and to move or to speak would shatter it.

Boredom is the keynote of poverty - of all its indignities, it is perhaps the hardest of all to live with - for where there is no money there is no change of any kind.

Charity in the theater begins and ends with those who have a play opening within a week of one's own.

There is nothing that one can say about acting, writing, producing or directing that cannot be revoked in the next breath. Nothing is immutable. The logic of one year is a folly of the next.

A play for me never really takes on an aspect of reality until it has left the dryair of the study and begins to sniff the musty breezes of a bare stage.

New York is not a city to return to in defeat.

Far more quickly than reason and logic, irony can penetrate rage and puncture self-pity.

Self-deception is sometimes as necessary a tool as a crowbar.

Boredom is the keynote of poverty ... it's dark brown sameness.