Play Quotes

“I always am in a role, lovely – for you, for them – even for myself. Yeah... Even when I’m alone, I am still in a role – and I myself am the most exacting audience I have ever had.”
― Simona Panova, Nightmarish Sacrifice

“And I wasn’t playing a role – I was trying to be myself.
But the harder I was striving, the more I was realizing that I had probably lost that ‘myself’ somewhere between two perfectly performed roles...”
― Simona Panova, Nightmarish Sacrifice

“Relax. Refresh. Renew. Play. Sing. Laugh. Enjoy. Forgive. Dance. Love. Hug. Share. Kiss. Create. Explore. Hope. Listen. Dare. Trust. Dream. Learn. TODAY!”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

“And what if you try to kill me? Or worse: to kiss me?”
― Simona Panova, Nightmarish Sacrifice

“Even I don’t know myself... In fact, I don’t know if I really have a self at all, as I’m constantly playing different roles and pretending – not so much on stage as in real life...”
― Simona Panova, Nightmarish Sacrifice

“...love, all at once and much, much too completely. It's like you suddenly turn a blinding light on something that had always been half a shadow...”
― Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire and Other Plays

“The streets are a poor kid’s PlayStation™”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“For a child, it is in the simplicity of play that the complexity of life is sorted like puzzle pieces joined together to make sense of the world.”
― L.R. Knost, Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages

“Don’t you have dragons to fight so that you started saving girls who don’t need it?”
― Simona Panova, Nightmarish Sacrifice

“Life is a game, you live so you play. Follow your dreams and win what your happy heart desires.”
― Roel van Sleeuwen

“Dads. Do you honestly expect anybody to believe that you can’t find 20 minutes to step away from your computer or turn off the television to play with your child? It has to happen every single day. Do you not understand that children will hinge their entire facet of trust on whether or not their dad plays with them and how involved he is when he plays with them? Do you know the damage you do by not playing with your children every day?”
― Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing: The Best of Year One

“Mammals of every species indulge in play. Games are Nature's way of preparing us to face difficult realities.”
― Daniel Suarez, Daemon

“It would be better to have no school at all than the schools we now have. Encouraged, instead of frightened, children could learn several languages before reaching age of four, at that age engaging in the invention of their own languages. Play'd be play instead of being, as now, release of repressed anger.”
― John Cage, M: Writings '67–'72

“O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give,
Nor aught so good but strain’d from that fair use
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometimes by action dignified.
Within the infant rind of this small flower
Poison hath residence and medicine power:
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Two such opposed kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;
And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“You'll like it less when you hear what they've been building. It's a big raised platform at the end of the square about two metres above the ground, with steps running up to it.'

'Like a stage?' Erak suggested. 'Maybe they're going to put on a play.'

'Or an execution,' Horace said.”
― John Flanagan, Erak's Ransom

“I always thought there would be more interesting people at my wedding.”
― Sarah Ruhl, Eurydice

“The notion that inspired play (even when audacious, offensive, or obscene) enhances rather than diminishes intellectual vigor and spiritual fulfillment, the notion that in the eyes of the gods the tight-lipped hero and the wet-cheeked victim are frequently inferior to the red-nosed clown, such notions are destined to be a hard sell to those who have E.M. Forster on their bedside table and a clump of dried narcissus up their ass.

Not to worry. As long as words and ideas exist, there will be a few misfits who will cavort with them in a spirit of *approfondement*–if I may borrow that marvelous French word that translates roughly as ‘playing easily in the deep’–and in so doing they will occasionally bring to realization Kafka’s belief that ‘a novel should be an ax for the frozen seas around us’.”
― Tom Robbins

“Give freely, love fully, and play with fervor! Don’t put so many conditioned rules on your happiness. Life can be a beautiful experience if we allow it.”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

“Our hearts and imaginations need to dance and play if we are to live awake”
― Jaeda DeWalt

“—Yo solo quería tener a alguien que me quisiera en verdad. Como lo que tienes con Robert.
—Yo no tengo nada con él—me defendí de inmediato.
—Lo quieres—suspiró—Y él te quiere a ti, se nota. Él es el único hombre que sé que te quiere a pesar de cómo eres.”
― Lolo Mayaya, Play With Me

“Glib tongues frill up their hash of knowledge
for mankind in polished speeches
that are no more than vaporous winds
rustling the fallen leaves in autumn.”
― Goethe

“I hate parties.
And a wedding is the biggest party of all.
All the guests arrived and Orpheus is taking a shower.
He's always taking a shower when the guests arrive so he doesn't have to greet them.
Then I have to greet them.

A wedding is for daughters and fathers. The mothers all dress up, trying to look like young women. But a wedding is for a father and daughter. They stop being married to each other on that day.

I always thought there would be more interesting people at my wedding.”
― Sarah Ruhl, Eurydice

“Orpheus never liked words. He had his music. He would get a funny look on his face and I would say what are you thinking about and he would always be thinking about music.”
― Sarah Ruhl, Eurydice

“Summer is a period of luxurious growth. To be in harmony with the atmosphere of summer, awaken early in the morning and reach to the sun for nourishment to flourish as the gardens do. Work, play, travel, be joyful, and grow into selfless service. The bounty of the outside world enters and enlivens us.”
― Paul Pitchford, Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition

“It occurred to Raule that all children were monsters in the world and were instinctively aware of it. They were reminded of their anomalous nature by adults, whom they failed to resemble, and with whose habitations and tools their bodies were at odds. This was surely why the little girl played with the sequins so solemnly and with such intense concentration. She was doing nothing less than conjuring, out of pattern and colour, a world that conformed to her desires and obeyed her will. The boy, on the other hand, showed with the whole attitude of his being that he knew there was only the one world and he would kill it if he could.”
― K.J. Bishop, The Etched City

“Money should not direct you to what to do and what not to do; the giver of the money is responsible for playing that role.”
― Israelmore Ayivor

“If we were in a restaurant sometimes Orpheus would look sullen and wouldn't talk to me and I thought people felt sorry for me. I should have realized that women envied me. Their husbands talked too much.

But I wanted to talk to him about my notions. I was working on a new philosophical system. It involved hats.”
― Sarah Ruhl, Eurydice

“You can’t play with everything that looks playable, I guess even a child knows that.”
― M.F. Moonzajer

“Our play is not something separate from our spirituality; it is itself a sign of the presence of God in the world.”
― Ken Shigematsu, God in My Everything: How an Ancient Rhythm Helps Busy People Enjoy God

“As long as music survives, poetry will never die.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson