Tony Kushner
Tony Kushner
Anthony Robert "Tony" Kushneris an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for his play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. He co-authored with Eric Roth the screenplay for the 2005 film Munich, and he wrote the screenplay for the 2012 film Lincoln, both critically acclaimed movies, for which received Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay. For his work, he received a National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth16 July 1956
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I don't understand why I'm not dead. When your heart breaks, you should die
It's the fear of what comes after the doing that makes the doing hard to do.
A play is never finished. You'll find out how much I mean that when you read my Last Will and Testament.
I've always been drawn to writing historical characters. The best stories are the ones you find in history.
One has to have a complicated kind of optimism. You can't refuse to look at how horrible things are.
Torture yourself about your failures. And then get back to work.
Artists know that diligence counts as much, if not more, as inspiration; in art, as in politics, patience counts as much as revolution.
Respect the delicate ecology of your delusions.
It isn't easy, it doesn't count if it's easy, it's the hardest thing. Forgiveness. Which is maybe where love and justice finally meet.
I feel there's a power in theatre, but it's an indirect power. It's like the relationship of the sleeper to the unconscious. You discover things you can't afford to countenance in waking life. You can forget them, remember them a day later or not have any idea what they are about.
Don't be afraid; people are so afraid; don't be afraid to live in the raw wind, naked, alone...Learn at least this: What you are capable of. Let nothing stand in your way.
Love is the world's infinite mutability; lies, hatred, murder even, are all knit up in it; it is the inevitable blossoming of its opposites, a magnificent rose smelling faintly of blood.
There's a kind of a fundamental irresponsibility in playwriting, and the strength of playwriting comes from that irresponsibility.
In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead.