John Patrick
John Patrick
John Patrickwas an American playwright and screenwriter...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth17 May 1905
CountryUnited States of America
exciting goes great individual last money precisely
Playwriting is the last great bastion of the individual writer. It's exciting precisely because it's where the money isn't. Money goes to safety, to consensus. It's not individualism.
business given life whenever
I've done very well in the film business. Whenever I have wanted something, the film business has given it to me. I'm very fortunate. My big problem in life has always been, 'What do I want?'
caught money
You have to live in order to have something to write about - you get caught up in moviemaking and celebrities and money, and it's very intoxicating, but it doesn't give you what you need as a writer. You have to do something else for that.
directed women
Women consume, and they must be directed what to consume, or they may identify you as lunch.
conscience dangerous destroy few ground life middle people rigor satisfies total wake
Conscience is the most dangerous thing you possess. If you wake it up, it may destroy you. To live a life of total moral rigor is not necessarily the way to go. It's the path for very few people. Most people need to come up with some kind of middle ground that satisfies their practical, moral, and philosophical esthetic needs.
angle appetite leg level life next relationship repugnant
There is some level on which this life must occasionally become repugnant and unappetizing to you and you must step back from it. And then you have a new relationship with it, and then you step back into it from a different angle - with a new appetite - and then you find the next leg of your journey.
began though until wrote
It wasn't until I was 35 or 36, when I wrote 'Danny and the Deep Blue Sea,' that I began to get some notoriety, though I only made $5,000.
basically came eye figuring films money needed pay plays realized seventies since watch
I've been writing plays since the seventies and only came to moviemaking when I basically realized that I needed some money to pay the rent. I started to watch films with an eye to figuring out how to write them.
five gets people plays
Back when you were doing plays like 'The Miracle Worker,' you had 20, 25 people in the cast. When you go to make the film, that's not such a stretch. But when you're doing plays like 'Proof,' it's just five people or something in the thing, and it gets to be a really difficult re-conception.
fewer plays
The modern economics of the theater is such that we write plays with fewer and fewer characters.
incredibly
'The Miracle Worker' is just such an incredibly powerful play on stage, and is so kinetic, and athletic.
brilliant burn crash david either music plays
Some actors are brilliant in David Mamet, but they would crash and burn in my plays and visa-versa. You either have my music in your body, or you don't.
adopted disease enamored five four involved rounds theater
I adopted two children, then I got eye disease and five rounds of surgery. I went blind in one eye, then the other eye, and that went on for three or four years. I got very enamored and involved with the theater and did a lot of plays.
particular playwright
I became a playwright and screenwriter. Italian-Americans were my particular specialty. I liked the way they talked. There was something free in it.