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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"In many ways, theatre is more rewarding for a writer. I used to think it was like painting a wall - that when the play is finished, it's done - but now I realise it's more like gardening; you plant the thing, then you have to constantly tend it. You're part of a thing that's living."
"You don't have to live the blues to play the blues."
"Man works when he is partially involved. When he is totally involved he is at play or leisure."
"You must not be afraid of playing wrong notes. Just forget it, play it wrong! But play!"
"They hate because they fear, and they fear because they feel that the deepest feelings of their lives are being assaulted and outraged. And they do not know why; they are powerless pawns in a blind play of social forces."
"I don't mind playing absolute bastards... I just don't want to play the grouch."
"To this day, if I ever meet grownups who play ukulele, I love 'em."
"They’d say, ‘If you play the record backwards, you can hear evil things like 'grrrr!'’ and I would think, ‘Geez, I didn’t know the devil sounded like that. I thought he was coherent like the rest of us.’"
"Turn your sparring into play - but always play seriously."
"The entire universe is God's cosmic motion picture, and that individuals are merely actors in the divine play who change roles through reincarnation; mankind's deep suffering is rooted in identifying too closely with one's current role, rather than with the movie's director, or God."
"We obtain better knowledge of a person during one hour's play and games than by conversing with him for a whole year"
"Choose your team carefully. So much of your success is due to the people who you surround yourself with. Your friends, your family, and the people that you work with -- they all play an important role in inspiring you and supporting you and giving you stability. These are the people in your life who will be honest with you."
"Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist but a person who drives a racing car not called a racist?"
"I also say with backbends, you have to be cautiously bold. Not carelessly bold. You have to descend to the dictation of the spine. You cannot command from the brain to do the poses. As you play with a child, guarding the child from injuries, similarly you have to play in backbends, guarding your spine."
"I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules."
"Half the time I feel like I'm appealing to the downer freaks out there. We start to play one downer record after another until I begin to get down myself. Give me something from 1960 or something; let me get up again. The music of today is for downer freaks, and I'm an upper."
"You can do anything with children if you only play with them."
"God loves me, and that he has the perfect plan for me. His plan will take me through a lots of ups and downs, but if I stay faithful to him that in the end he will work everything for my good. Now when I play basketball, I don't play for anyone else, I only play for God. That's the type of purpose that he gave me, and once he gave me that purpose, is when I found my peace, and once I got my peace, that's when I got my joy."
"In every well-written play the battle rages between the primary powers of Good and Evil, and it is this battle which constitutes the life impulse of the play, its driving force, and is basic to all plot structures...In any true piece of art...the beginning and the end are, or should be, polar in principle. All the main qualities of the first section should transform themselves into their opposites in the last section."
"I am God. So it’s easy to play him. They say God is in all things. So if God is in me, then I am in God. Therefore, I am God. God does not exist without me."
