Jerome Lawrence Quotes & Sayings

#1. If you're going to make a musical, don't cartoon it from the play. Make it better than the play. Have a reason for making it sing.

Jerome Lawrence

#2. Time and space are awash here.

Jerome Lawrence

#3. The whole point of writing is to have something in your gut or in your soul or in your mind that's burning to be written.

Jerome Lawrence

#4. Don't have any opinions. They're bad for business.

Jerome Lawrence

#5. Thou shalt not steal the shekels of thine audience with a play which doth not let them know what the hell goeth on.

Jerome Lawrence

#6. Why? Because I refuse to erase a man's lifetime? I tell you Brady had the same right as Cates: the right to be wrong!

Jerome Lawrence

#7. In no instance is there to be a musical or opera of Inherit the Wind because it doesn't sing. It's an intellectual play.

Jerome Lawrence

#8. If my own brother challenged the faith of millions, I would oppose him.

Jerome Lawrence

#9. An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral. And the advance of man's knowledge is a greater miracle than all the sticks turned to snakes or the parting of the waters.

Jerome Lawrence

#10. A giant once lived in that body. But Matt Brady got lost. Because he was looking for God too high up and too far away.

Jerome Lawrence

#11. I say that you cannot administer a wicked law impartially. You can only destroy. You can only punish. I warn you that a wicked law, like cholera, destroys everyone it touches - its upholders as well as its defiers.

Jerome Lawrence

#12. Cynical? Thats my fascination. I do hateful things, for which people love me, And lovable things for which they hate me. I am a friend of enemies, the enemy of friends; I am admired for my detestability. I am both Poles and the Equator, with no Temperate Zones between.

Jerome Lawrence

#13. If the enemy sends it's Goliath into battle, it magnifies our cause.

Jerome Lawrence

#14. Is it possible to be overzealous, to destroy that which you hope to save-so that nothing is left but emptiness.

Jerome Lawrence

#15. We must look hopeful.

Jerome Lawrence

#16. Our only competition in the theater is boredom, because if I'm bored with a play, if I'm revolted by a play on stage, with the Broadway prices, especially today, I'm going to walk out and not come back and pay that price again.

Jerome Lawrence

#17. You must not demand the failure of your peers, because the more good things that are around in film, in television, in theater - why the better it is for all of us.

Jerome Lawrence

#18. All motion is relative. Maybe it's you who've moved away by standing still.

Jerome Lawrence

#19. It snows. So I don't even have to go to the pond for fresh water - just reach out the door for a handful of snow. Melt it, and it's sweet as the sky.

Jerome Lawrence

#20. It frightens me to imagine the state of learning in this world if everyone had your driving curiosity.

Jerome Lawrence

#21. Hot dog? Bible? Now that poses a problem! Which is hungrier-my stomach or my soul?

Jerome Lawrence

#22. Bert, whenever you see something bright, shining, perfect-seeming - all gold, with purple spots - look behind the paint! And if it's a lie - show it up for what it really is!

Jerome Lawrence

#23. Buy a Bible!Your guide to eternal life!

Jerome Lawrence

#24. The man who has everything figured out is probably a fool. College examinations notwithstanding, it takes a very smart fella to say I don't know the answer!

Jerome Lawrence

#25. It's always such a joy that you wake up in the morning and there's work to do.

Jerome Lawrence

#26. You don't suppose this kind of thing is ever finished, do you? Tomorrow it'll be something else-and another fella will have to stand up. And you've helped give him the guts to do it!

Jerome Lawrence

#27. I hereby excommunicate you from the Milky Way!

Jerome Lawrence

#28. The aftermath of the war is what inspired us to write many of our plays. The whole reason for our writing Inherit the Wind was that we were appalled at the blacklisting. We were appalled at thought control.

Jerome Lawrence