I feel like the reason I ended up becoming a playwright is because I never choose the right … - Annie Baker

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And next time you're planning to injure yourself to get me attention, just remember that a little sweet talk works wonders.

Annie Baker

I feel like the reason I ended up becoming a playwright is because I never choose the right word. As a kid, my fantasy profession was to be a novelist. But the thing about writing prose - and maybe great prose writers don't feel this way - but I always felt it was about choosing words. I was always like, "I have to choose the perfect word. " And then it would kill me, and I would choose the wrong word or I would choose too many perfect words - I wrote really purple prose.

Ended, Kids, Profession, Purple, Writing

Same Author Quotes

For me, on every project, I realize that I've boxed myself into a corner, or that the play necessitates some sort of theatrical convention that I realize I hate while I'm making it. So then the next play is always a rebellion. Or like, the thing I didn't even realize I was doing last time I will make sure I don't do this time. But there's always some other blind spot. And then that blind spot inspires the play that comes after.

Blind Spots, Hate, Inspires, Make, Play

I feel with writing, so much of the time, I don't know how to tap in and be spontaneous and alive on a daily basis. So I don't write every day. I'm just not disciplined, and I can't be in the groove most of the time. I feel like I'm in the groove ten days a year or something. But with reading and research, I feel like I have this incredibly instinctive pleasure-driven process that ends up working out for me and inspiring me. It's almost like a maze, like I know eventually I'll hit the heart of my play if I read enough books.

Book, Eventually, Reading, Spontaneous, Writing

Being sad and going out on terrible dates and having horrible breakups and then having a shitty job and then quitting the shitty job and then wondering if you shouldn't have quit the shitty job and then getting a new shitty job that you get fired off of after six weeks, it's all so good for your writing.

Breakup, Breakups, Fired, Jobs, Sad, Writing

For early plays of mine, I started with character. But I think that's because I hadn't been in theaters; I hadn't worked that much. I'm very interested in character, obviously, but once I started having my plays produced, I became so fascinated by the theatrical experiment and the weirdness of theatrical space, so now all my plays start with space and stage picture and setting - or container is maybe the better way to put it.

Character, Early, Fascinated, Space, Thinking

I ended up becoming a playwright because you can be grammatically incorrect: people speaking in bad poetry or people attempting to speak well and sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing. The whole imperfection of it suddenly felt freeing to me.

Felt, Imperfection, People, Poetry, Succeed