Quotes by Eric Bogosian

• If all I ever wrote about was inner city freaks, I think it would be dishonest.
• I'm always surprised by things that happen to my work.
• I'm not hip, I'm not cool, I'm not glib.
• I'm very underground.
• If we all knew we were going to live to be 150 years old, we'd all approach our lives very differently.
• If you say city to people, people have no problem thinking of the city as rife with problematic, screwed-up people, but if you say suburbs - and I'm not the first person to say this, it's been said over and over again in literature - there's a sense of normalcy.
• It's a mental fake-out to myself. I make believe I'm making a new show so I forget the material I was working on and make up some fresh material.
• I write my plays to create an excuse for full-tilt acting and performing.
• Well, the real Eric Bogosian is pretty self-conscious of himself.
• I write, but I also act.
• The world intrudes in my brain daily. Since my brain is dripping with all kinds of stuff that's out there in the world, that I can't seem to be able to shut out, it has to end up being in my work as well.
• I was definitely surprised when Talk Radio took off as a play. As a film it has become somewhere between a popular thing and a cult thing.
• I started acting when I was in high school, started writing when I got to New York in 1975.
• I provide the bricks and mortar with the words and situations - the director and the actors and the designers build the house.
• I love playing other people's work. I love acting.
• I know that I'm inadequate, but I never thought that at seventeen. I thought I was doing the best I could. I thought I was being idealistic.
• I don't know anybody who does what I do. I'm very underground.
• I do write about people who are complex and are striving with something and can't quite get past their own stuff, which would be a proxy for myself because that's what the deal is with me.
• For a long time, my shows were about people walking out or about getting my gigs canceled or having the presenter not wanting to pay me.
• Ensemble is hard to do. It's like 3-D chess.
• As soon as the dirt is hitting the casket, it'll all be forgotten.
• I'm not a light-hearted person, so I can't think light-hearted at work.
• I write for an audience that likes what I like, reads what I read, thinks about the things I think about. In many ways, this puts me in opposition to the people who go to the theater generally.