Play quotes
12.5K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside play — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Then I felt that every inflection of my voice, every word in my mouth, was a lie, a play whose sole purpose was to cover emptiness and boredom. There was only one way I could avoid a state of despair and a breakdown. To be silent. And to reach behind the silence for clarity or at least try to collect the resources that might still be available to me."
"Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions."
"Where you see immigration competition play out most clearly is among high school dropouts. I'd say there's clearly immigrant competition among the least-skilled workers, but natives are a shrinking share while immigrants are a growing share."
"And when other people see me play basketball...the way I treat my teammates, the opponents, the refs, that's all a reflection of God's image and God's love so that's the stuff I try to focus on."
"Don't use your brain to play it, let your feelings guide your fingers."
"Milton, of all people, gave the most perfect definition of the state of mind required to play jazz: ' with wanton heed and giddy cunning.' That's how you play jazz."
"There's nothing personal in it [THE SKRIKER]. I'm not ever inclined with any of the plays to say, This is about that, because plays are about the whole event that they are. . . . I was certainly wanting to write a play about damage - damage to nature and damage to people, both of which there's plenty of about. To that extent, I was writing a play about England now."
"Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?"
"You have no control over the hand that life deals you, but how you play that hand is entirely up to you."
"Play the flute of felicity! You, yourself, are the melody."
"The one advantage of playing with fire...is that no one ever gets singed. It is the people who don't know how to play with it who get burned up."
"Remember: Matter: how tiny your share of it. Time: how brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate: how small a role you play in it."
"If churches want to play the game of politics, let them pay admission like everyone else."
"My singing, if you want to call it that is merely another medium of expression. Just an instrument I play. That's how I see my voice."
"Well, the way I play, I try not to be a 'repeater pencil', ya dig? Originality's the thing. You can have tone and technique and a lot of other things but without originality you ain't really nowhere. Gotta be original."
"I've learned through experience of playing different characters, some of whom were jerks, that when you play a character who is pretentious or obnoxious, in any way, it's important to knock them down a peg."
"I will be the focal point for however long I decide to play. Half of me likes that idea and half of me doesn't, but once the adrenaline kicks in, I'll probably really enjoy it."
"I never give any character I play less respect than I give my own life."
"I've always told the musicians in my band to play what they know and then play above that. Because then anything can happen, and that's where great art and music happens."
"The Bible does not tell us that life in this world will be fair. Evil and sin are not Victorian gentlemen; they do not play fair."
