Theater of Inspiration: A Collection of Uplifting Quotes

"The theatre was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation."

- Stella Adler

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none."

- William Shakespeare

"The theatre was created to tell the truth about life and a social situation."

- Stella Adler

"Movies will make you famous; Television will make you rich; But theatre will make you good."

- Terrence Mann

"Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances."

- Sanford Meisner

"Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion."

- Martha Graham

"Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theatre, a piece of music or a book can make a difference. It can change the world."

- Alan Rickman

"Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly."

- Langston Hughes

"The play is not in the words, it’s in you!"

- Stella Adler

"The mission of the theatre, after all, is to change, to raise the consciousness of people to their human possibilities."

- Arthur Miller

"You should feel a flow of joy because you are alive. Your body will feel full of life. That is what you must give from the stage. Your life. No less. That is art: to give all you have."

- Anton Chekhov

"I personally would like to bring a tortoise onto the stage, turn it into a racehorse, then into a hat, a song, a dragoon and a fountain of water. One can dare anything in the theatre and it is the place where one dares the least."

- Augusto Boal

"Live like you’ll die tomorrow, work like you don’t need the money, and dance like nobody’s watching."

- Bob Fosse

"Great theatre is about challenging how we think and encouraging us to fantasize about a world we aspire to."

- Willem Dafoe

"Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do it. You really have to ignore all the reasons not to do it and follow your heart."

- Lynne Meadow

"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong."

- Joseph Chilton Pearce

"You’ve gotta be original. Because if you’re like someone else, what do they need you for?"

- Bernadette Peters

"Overcome the notion that you must be regular. It robs you of the chance to be extraordinary."

- Uta Hagen

"The power of art can break the shackles that bind and divide human beings."

- Daisaku Ikeda

"The arts make a bridge across this world in ways that nothing else can."

- Julie Andrews

"You gotta have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?"

- Oscar Hammerstein II

"Success is like failure. It’s how you perceive it. It’s what you do with it, not how you achieve it."

- Stephen Sondheim

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

- Samuel Beckett

"First, think. Second, dream. Third, believe. And finally, dare."

- Walt Disney

"Everyone deserves to have their story fully told."

- Dominique Morisseau

"Work hard, do the best you can, don’t ever lose faith in yourself and take no notice of what other people say about you."

- Noel Coward

"Write what you feel. Write because of that need for expression."

- Dorothy Fields

"Don’t try to be anyone else but yourself, because you are singular, and your greatest asset is your individuality."

- Sutton Foster

"All of the challenges will make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew."

- Cicely Tyson

"It all starts with self-reflection. And then you have to be brave. You have to figure out how to articulate what your dreams are."

- Glenn Close

"Not everyone is going to like what you do or what you have to offer; however, if you can’t see yourself doing anything else, and you have the drive and ambition, get the training and go for it."

- Kristin Chenoweth

"There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come."

- Victor Hugo

"Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience."

- Paulo Coelho

"Theater and storytelling has the power to change lives."

- Liesl Tommy

"To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it."

- Kurt Vonnegut

"All you can do is do good work, and do the good work for the sake of doing good work and your evolution as an artist."

- Audra McDonald

"Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage."

- Edward Albee

"Don’t listen to anyone who doesn’t know how to dream."

- Liza Minnelli

"If there’s a story that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it."

- Toni Morrison

"Some people dream of success, while other people get up every morning and make it happen."

- Wayne Huizenga

"Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art."

- Claude Debussy

"No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else."

- The Greatest Showman

"If you want to honor your craft and yourself, strive for the nobler instincts."

- Patti LaBelle

"Be yourself… And shoot for the stars. Obviously dreams really do come true."

- Laura Osnes

"Don’t wait for people to tell you who you are. Show them."

- Laura Benanti

"Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else."

- Judy Garland

"You have got to discover you, what you do, and trust it."

- Barbra Streisand

"I am not here to change the world. I am changing the world because I am here."

- Lisa Wilson

"You never know how far you’re gonna go if you don’t jump."

- Robbie Fairchild

"You are enough. You are so enough. It’s unbelievable how enough you are."

- Sierra Boggess

"Everybody has their own path. But with conviction and discipline you can make anything happen."

- Sonya Tayeh

"Learn how to take the worst situation and let it be the catalyst for our undoing, which is then our transformation."

- Eve Ensler

"Be bold. Envision yourself living a life that you love. Believe, even if you can only muster your faith for just this moment, believe that the sort of life you wish to live is, at this very moment, just waiting for you to summon it up. And when you wish for it, you begin moving toward it, and it, in turn, begins moving toward you."

- Suzan-Lori Parks

"There are no shortcuts to hard work."

- Adrienne Warren

"Just make it happen. Figure out a way to do it and work really hard."

- Casey Nicholaw

"The artist’s role is to raise the consciousness of the people. To make them understand life, the world and themselves more completely. That’s how I see it. Otherwise, I don’t know why you do it."

- Amiri Baraka

"Master your craft, empower yourself, and enjoy the journey."

- Denise Simon

"If you’re going to go for a thing, there’s no point unless you’re going all the way."

- Cynthia Erivo

"If you gauge how you’re doing on whether somebody is responding vocally or not, you’re up a creek. You can’t do that; you kind of have to be inside of your work… And tell the story every day. Tell the story. Tell the story. Regardless of how people are responding, tell the story."

- Billy Porter

"Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s radical voice."

- Paul Robeson

"Have a belief in yourself that is bigger than anyone’s disbelief."

- August Wilson

"Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it."

- James Baldwin

"Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change – it can not only move us, it makes us move."

- Ossie Davis

"Don’t wait for something big to occur. Start where you are, with what you have, and that will always lead you into something greater."

- Norm Lewis

"In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd."

- Miguel de Cervantes

"Sometimes you will meet yourself on the road before you have a chance to learn the appropriate greeting. Faced with your own possibilities, the hard part is knowing a speech is not required. All you have to say is yes."

- Pearl Cleage

"The director is really like a ringmaster in a circus. You've got all these acts that are coming on. Some are naturally brilliant, some have learned their stuff and some are no good...You're not any more important than any one of those acts. But in order to get those great performances, you have to create an atmosphere where everyone feels completely free to contribute."

- Phillip Noyce

"The theater is a weapon, and it is the people who should wield it."

- Augusto Boal

"The theatre is so endlessly fascinating because it's so accidental. It's so much like life."

- Arthur Miller

"Your job as actors is to understand the size of what you say, to understand what's beneath the word."

- Stella Adler

"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths pure theatre."

- Gail Godwin

"A theatre is the most important sort of house in the world because that's where people are shown what they could be if they wanted and what they'd like to be if they dared to and what they really are."

- Tove Jansson

"We have the ability to change people's minds and hearts - that's what we want to do with theatre. That's what theatre does... period."

- Gavin Creel

"The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation."

- Stella Adler

"I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being."

- Thornton Wilder

"I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged."

- Peter Brook

"The best two days in any theater person's life are the day he starts a new show and the day the damned thing is over with."

- Oscar Wilde

"Be so good they can’t ignore you."

- Steve Martin

"The theatre is a place for learning about the brevity of human glory: oh all those wonderful glittering absolutely vanished pantomime! Now I shall abjure magic and become a hermit: put myself in a situation where I can honestly say that I have nothing else to do but to learn to be good."

- Iris Murdoch

"Time goes on. So whatever you’re going to do. Do it. Do it now. Don’t wait."

- Robert de Niro

"Youth theatre isn't just about a precocious child that wants to sing and dance in front of people. It's for everyone; it's about a community, it's about being supported by your peer group."

- Sam Heughan

"All one needs to write a story is one feeling and four walls."

- Doris Betts

"The most important thing about acting is honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made."

- George Burns

"A word after a word after a word is power."

- Margaret Atwood

"You’re worse than decent. You’re virtuous."

- Eugene O'Neill

"He who seeks shall find."

- Sophocles

"Drama is life, with the dull bits cut out."

- Alfred Hitchcock

"One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you don’t utter."

- James Earl Jones

"Acting is about the exploration of character rather than simply a projection of self."

- Dame Judi Dench

"You just have to be open and ready, and let it all happen."

- Angela Lansbury

"Listen to your mother: Those stage & movie people got there because they're special..."

- Cassie, A CHORUS LINE

"At the end of the day, give up your worries and give thanks for the journey."

- Ben Vereen

"Theater is a verb before it is a noun, an act before it is a place."

- Martha Graham

"The path to moments of greatness in your life will be paved, in part, with your spectacular failures."

- Leslie Odom Jr.

"Nothing in theatre has any meaning before or after. Meaning is now."

- Peter Brook

"From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow."

- Aeschylus

"It will never be perfect, but perfect is overrated. Perfect is boring."

- Tina Fey

"Unless you learn how to be in your head, you’ll never learn how to create."

- Lin Manuel Miranda

"Theatre is the art form of the present: it exists only in the present, and then it's gone."

- Simon McBurney

"It’s good to remember… so you know you need to do now, so you know that you ain’t got forever just right now…"

- Tarell Alvin McCraney

"Don’t let form become more important than the substance of your heart and mind. Don’t let commerce determine what you do exclusively."

- Avery Brooks

"Don’t compare your career to anyone else’s. It’s tough when you’re in a business that’s competitive. I was having a difficult time with that in college. Now, I’m having to learn to be patient and be where I am."

- Danielle Brooks

"We all deal with failure. If you’re lucky enough to have a long career, it’s part of the experience."

- David Henry Hwang

"In our own, theatre can be the place where we come together, reaching with and through stories, to who we are and to who we can be."

- Juliet Stevenson

"Everyone has literature inside of them."

- Anna Deavere Smith

"There’s always doubt and fear. If you’re a human being, everybody’s got it."

- Keala Settle

"There isn’t anything I wanted to do that I haven’t. At the same time, there isn’t anything I’ve ever done that I didn’t want to do better."

- Richard Rodgers

"Always give them the old fire, even when you feel like a squashed cake of ice."

- Ethel Merman

"I believe in serendipity, but I also believe there are times when you have to be the one who lines up everything so it can fall into place."

- Susan Stroman

"One of my chief regrets during my years in the theater is that I could not sit in the audience and watch me."

- John Barrymore

"Theatre was my first love. I can't take the theatre out of me. And I wouldn't want to. To me, it's home."

- Jim Parsons

"Laughter is much more important than applause. Applause is almost a duty. Laughter is a reward."

- Carol Channing

"Theatre is about the collective imagination... Everything I use on-stage is driven by the subject matter and what you might call the text - but that text can be anything, from a fragment of movement or music to something you see on a TV."

- Simon McBurney

"Don’t accept that others know you better than you know yourself."

- Sonia Friedman

"If you’re not invited to the party, throw your own!"

- Diahann Carroll

"Don’t expect a pat on the back for merely doing your job, but know that you’ll get one for doing it exceptionally well."

- Lea Salonga

"We know what we are, but know not what we may be."

- Shakespeare

"You can’t get it right all the time, but you can try your best. If you’ve done that, all that’s left is to accept your shortcomings and have the courage to try to overcome them."

- Idina Menzel

"There's no real theatre without taking risks."

- Haris Pasovic

"He knows not his own strength that has not met adversity."

- Ben Jonson

"Nobody knows what you want except you. And nobody will be as sorry as you if you don’t get it. Wanting some other way to live is proof enough of deserving it. Having it is hard work, but not having it is sheer hell."

- Lillian Hellman

"Somewhere in our DNA we know that stories are out there to help us understand what we’re doing here on this planet."

- Theresa Rebeck

"You have to stop yourself from even thinking about failing."

- Julie Taymor

"I like the ephemeral thing about theatre, every performance is like a ghost - it's there and then it's gone."

- Maggie Smith

"Victories aren’t born on the field. You create them during practice – day in and day out."

- Silvia Pencak

"Don’t wait for the perfect moment. Take the moment and make it perfect!"

- Aryn Kyle

"If you act brave, you can seem brave, and if you do it enough, you can take yourself into believing you’re brave."

- Kelli O'Hara

"Never do but one thing at a time, and never put off till tomorrow what you can do today."

- Lope de Vega

"We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."

- George Bernard Shaw

"You can’t judge your success by someone else’s. You can’t be afraid to fail."

- Patina Miller

"Remember: there are no small parts, only small actors."

- Konstantin Stanislavski

"I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself."

- Arianna Huffington

"Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th."

- Julie Andrews

"Sometimes you can have the smallest role in the smallest production and still have a big impact."

- Neil Patrick Harris

"Giving voice to characters that have no other voice—that’s the great worth of what we do."

- Meryl Streep

"Lots and lots of things scare me but you just get on with it. Fright can transform into petrol, you just have to use it to your advantage."

- Dame Judi Dench

"Together, we are a symphony. I am the Maestro, you are the instruments. With no instruments there would be only silence. With no Maestro, there would be only noise."

- Willow

"The audience doesn't have a script."

- Scott Piehler

"The play is on top of me all the time, and I am constantly thinking about it. Even when I leave the theatre, I'll mumble the lines to myself or think about the way the character walks or holds himself."

- Donald Pleasence

"The theatre is the involuntary reflex of the ideas of the crowd."

- Sarah Bernhardt

"Happiness was useless to me. It was heartache that filled my purse. What happy man has need of Shakespeare?"

- Jennifer Donnelly

"I think American Ballet Theatre is setting that standard now for classical ballet, that you can dream big, and it doesn't matter what you look like, where you come from, what your background is."

- Misty Copeland

"The primary function of a theatre is not to please itself, or even to please its audience. It is to serve talent."

- Robert Brustein

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."

- Albert Einstein

"Theatre is a series of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster."

- Tom Stoppard

"Don't let 'em catch you at it."

- Spencer Tracy

"You never know where people are going to turn up in the future…be nice to everybody."

- Robyn Goodman

"The only thing better than singing is more singing."

- Ella Fitzgerald

"Artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs."

- G. K. Chesterton

"It's amazing how much work gets done when no one worries about who takes the credit."

- Hubert H. Humphrey

"Theater is life, film is art, television is furniture."