Top 100 Act One Quotes
#1. If you can sit at set of sun And count the deeds that you have done And counting find oneself-denying act, one word That eased the heart of him that heard. One glance most kind, Which fell like sunshine where he went, Then you may count that day well spent.
Robert Browning
#2. Hounds and hearthstones, girl, haven't you ever heard a story about Koschei? He's only got the one. Act one, Scene one: pretty girl. Act one, Scene two: pretty girl gone!
Catherynne M Valente
#3. But I suppose the most revolutionary act one can engage in is ... to tell the truth.
Howard Zinn
#4. In grammar school I read 'Act One' by Moss Hart, and being a playwright struck me as the most magical and romantic career anyone could have ... But I never did write a play.
Alice McDermott
#5. Most playwrights go wrong on the fifth word. When you start a play and you type 'Act one, scene one,' your writing is every bit as good as Arthur Miller or Eugene O'Neill or anyone. It's that fifth word where amateurs start to go wrong.
Meredith Willson
#6. Act one: put your characters in a tree. Act two: throw rocks at them. Act three: get them down again.
Anonymous
#7. If there's a gun on the wall in act one, scene one, you must fire the gun by act three, scene two. If you fire a gun in act three, scene two, you must see the gun on the wall in act one, scene one.
Anton Chekhov
#8. Merlin seeks assistance from Pigwiggen, the only one of Arthur's knights who is also a fairy, and they unite their enchantments to move the British Court to Turkestan. Lively end to Act One.
Davies Robertson
#9. Our response to the factory farm is ultimately a test of how we respond to the powerless, to the most distant, to the voiceless - it is a test of how we act when no one is forcing us to act one way or another. Consistency is not required, but engagement with the problem is.
Jonathan Safran Foer
#10. When one confesses to an act, one ceases to be an actor in it and becomes its witness, becomes a man that observes and narrates it and no longer the man that performed it.
Jorge Luis Borges
#11. Using the voice is a physical act, one that first announces the existence of the body of residence and then trumpets its arrival in a public space.
Elizabeth Alexander
#12. Act One: Get your hero up a tree. Act Two: Throw rocks at him. Act Three: Get him down out of the tree. - attributed to George Abbott, on playwriting
Darrell Fusaro
#13. A man has no more right to say an uncivil thing than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.
Samuel Johnson
#14. If the business were a play, Act One is: Woohoo, bright and bushy-tailed. We're going to make something great! Act Two is: We're six months behind on back-end development. We're trying to raise venture capital. We're trying to figure out what furniture we should sell to make payroll.
Caterina Fake
#15. One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, and one's still acting.
Maggie Smith
#16. If act one in life is about finding yourself, then act two is about finding everyone else.
David Levithan
#17. We think we want all the time in the world with the people we love, but maybe what we need is the opposite. Just a finite amount of time, so we still think the other person is interesting. Maybe we don't need acts two and three. Maybe love is best in act one.
Nicola Yoon
#18. When we went on the air, I didn't want to be interrupted for an act-one curtain.
Norman Lear
#19. People do misinterpret events, especially the meaning of other people's actions and the motives that lead people to act one way or another.
Paul Ekman
#20. No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.
William James
#21. A.J. nods out of politeness, but he doesn't believe in random acts. He is a reader, and what he believes in is narrative construction. If a gun appears in act one, that gun had better go off by act three.
Gabrielle Zevin
#22. I'm not the type of person to act one way in front of the camera and another when it's off. What you see is what you get.
Seungri
#24. After each creative act one has to be sustained by one's strength of character, by a moral sense, by I don't know what, lest one tumble.
Etty Hillesum
#26. So, my credo consists of the pursuit and the act. One without the other is self-indulgence.
Studs Terkel
#27. One life is but a single act. One body - a garment. One century - a day. One task - an experience. One triumph - an acquisition. One death - a breath of renovation.
Andre Luiz Moreira
#28. It's a big flash of all these things and whatever you take out of that statement's one statement, one mind, one statement, one act, one show, and all the songs are one.
Alice Cooper
#29. One of the findings that really interests me is that, although we think we ACT because of the way we FEEL, we often FEEL because of the way we ACT. So an almost uncanny way to change your feelings is to act the way you WISH you felt.
Gretchen Rubin
#30. You do not need permission to be you. Just be your authentic, brilliant, one-soul-only self. You are a marvel. Act like it!
Toni Sorenson
#31. I was essentially trained by Oscar Hammerstein to think of songs as one-act plays, to move a song from point A to point B dramatically.
Stephen Sondheim
#32. To forgive a friend, one must practice generosity. To forgive an enemy, one must practice empathy. To forgive yourself requires charity. Forgiveness is a sacred act of gallantry.
Mac MacKenzie
#33. In the middle of the world, make one positive step. In the center of chaos, make one definitive act. Just write.
Natalie Goldberg
#34. MANY MANAGE TO SEPARATE THEIR LIFE FROM THEIR FILMS. THEY LIVE ONE WAY AND EXPRESS OTHER IDEAS IN THEIR WORKS. THEY ARE ABLE TO SPLIT THEIR CONSCIENCE. I CAN'T. TO ME CINEMA IS NOT JUST MY JOB: IT'S MY LIFE, AND EACH FILM IS AN ACT OF MY LIFE.
Andrei Tarkovsky
#35. Why did you act in this way, you pitiable ones? Make a bow of repentance, recognize your fault, be sorry for your nakedness. Neither one of them could blame himself, neither of them had the least bit of humility.
Dorotheus Of Gaza
#36. It is the everlasting disgrace of the Clinton Administration that it has chosen to betray America's heritage as a beacon of freedom, and instead to act as the ally and agent of a police state in retrieving one of its prisoners.
David Horowitz
#37. One can decide that the principal role of knowledge is as an indispensable element in the functioning of society, and act in accordance with that decision, only if one has already decided that society is a giant machine.
Jean-Francois Lyotard
#38. I always wanted to have a family - that was one of my big wishes. And in school, I'd taken drama, and I'd always wanted to act. I did go to drama school in New York, Los Angeles and London, and I did small parts here and there, but I never really had the time. Modeling was always paying more.
Jerry Hall
#39. Happiness and unhappiness are in the heart and spirit of each one of us: If you feel unhappy, then place yourself above that and act so that your happiness does not get to be dependent on anything.
Catherine The Great
#40. God is triune; there are within the Godhead three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the work of salvation is one in which all three act together, the Father purposing redemption, the Son securing it and the Spirit applying it.
J.I. Packer
#41. Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk - and to act.
Andre Malraux
#42. Sexuality, and sexual orientation - regardless of orientation - is just natural. An act of sex is one of the most human things.
Hozier
#43. Rightly understood the New Year festival is an act of faith. It is easier for the year to change than to change ourselves. But we believe that somehow, magically, one will lead to the other.
R. Joseph Hoffmann
#44. He fills my thoughts, my dreams, and my nightmares. The memory of him, and his touch, pound on the door to my soul with such force that cracks are forming in the wood. I do my best to act like no one is home by keeping the door locked and the lights off.
Andrea Randall
#45. Forgiveness is not the act of doing nothing to the one who hurts you. It's easy to do nothing, but hard to forgive.
Ogwo David Emenike
#46. I think one of the reasons I'm so thrilled with writing is because it is an act of reading for me at the same time, which is why my revisions are so sustained.
Toni Morrison
#47. The urge to act became the overriding force in my life. It thrilled me. There's a moment with acting when you're in the groove, and you and what you're trying to do are seamlessly one. That happens sometimes, and I'm really happy it can happen to me.
Rupert Graves
#48. If there was one thing I knew, it was that our demons were what shaped who we were. The things we do, the way we act, are all driven by the things we want locked away forever.
Barbara C. Doyle
#49. It is the ultimate metafictional act, not homicide but suicide. (Wallace would say that one of the problems of metafiction is that there is no difference.)
D.T. Max
#50. If the body dies, it does no harm to the mind, but if the mind dies, one can no longer act as a man even though the body survives.
Yoshida Shoin
#51. Civilized beings regard the act of intercourse as the highest expression of romantic love. One need only observe the behavior of animals, however, to realize that the act is often a form of violence.
Fiona Paul
#52. Great services are not canceled by one act or by one single error.
Benjamin Disraeli
#53. He understood very little about this strange situation, and to act in a situation one does not understand is to invite the most terrible consequences.
Stephen King
#54. When it comes to acting, you really have to create movement which in some ways is dancing. And dancing, I feel is very important to act as well. I wouldn't put one over the other.
Harry Shum Jr.
#55. When you travel alone, no one knows who you are, there's no predetermined idea about how you should act, you are free, and you can be your true self. Every morning you are liberated to create your identity as you truly want it to be.
Sean Michael Hayes
#56. The Pawn moves only one square at a time, and that straight forward, except in the act of capturing, when it takes one step diagonally to the right or left file on to the square occupied by the man taken, and continues on that file until it captures another man.
Howard Staunton
#57. I try to be good but sometimes a person just has to break out and act like the wild and springy thing one used to be. It's impossible not to remember wild an want it back.
Mary Oliver
#58. For some reason I am one of those people who act like they were born and raised during the Depression.
Kirstie Alley
#59. You act out what it feels like to be the one who doesn't belong. And you act it out by trying to do to others what has been done to you.
Jeanette Winterson
#60. But, if I dare say it, it wasn't until I had helped kill a man that I realized how elusive and complex an act a murder can actually be, and not necessarily attributable to one dramatic motive.
Donna Tartt
#61. And that luck was only fate's cheating, giving an illusion of power. But that illusion lingered, and I became restless. I decided to act, to challenge fate. (...) I gained courage; every afternoon I walked a little farther. And one day I got there.
V.S. Naipaul
#62. If one just intellectually understands the view it will not help! One must actually experience it! There are many people who understand the view but don't experience it. If the view were experienced, they wouldn't act the way they do!
Padampa Sangye
#63. One-act [plays] are not strikingly remunerative, but, on the other hand, the veriest dullard could not spend more than a week in writing one.
Arnold Bennett
#64. When you're reading, you're laughing and not quite noticing what's happening. One second you're still kind of chuckling, and then all of sudden you're in the third act of the book and in this very dark and claustrophobic place.
Moshe Kasher
#65. A different vision of ethics is that of a collection of resources people can use to act better. The resources might be firm rules that could always be relied on. Or they might be ideals that could often be followed without thinking but that sometimes conflicted with one another.
Philip Kitcher
#66. If you're going to kill yourself just do me one favor: say it was because of my act. Can you do that? I need the press.
Doug Stanhope
#67. One thing is certain. I am not afraid to act as my conscience dictates, no matter what the world may think ...
Antoinette Brown Blackwell
#68. If you act like a rock star you will be treated like one.
Marilyn Manson
#69. Reading is an act of civilization; it's one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities.
Ben Okri
#70. One reason that returns on black political investment have been so meager is that black politicians often act in ways that benefit themselves but don't represent the concerns of most blacks.
Jason L. Riley
#71. No one is defined by a single act," Frederic said. "Whether it was years ago or weeks ago. We're all given chances to change, to make up for things we've done wrong. It's how we handle those opportunities that really matters.
Christopher Healy
#72. Well, there's 10 - there's 10 different - there's 10 different titles, you know, to the Civil Rights Act, and nine out of 10 deal with public institutions and I'm absolutely in favor of. One deals with private institutions, and had I been around, I would have tried to modify that.
Rand Paul
#73. Drink reacts on its practitioners in conflicting ways. One brave can knock off a quart of Scotch and look and act as sober as Herbert Hoover. Another, after three Martinis, makes two-cushion carroms off the chaise lounge as he attempts to negotiate the bathroom.
Tallulah Bankhead
#74. If, after all, men cannot always make history have a meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one.
Albert Camus
#75. But she would make it, because maybe he wasn't much of a warrior but if there was one thing that he was cut out for it was an epic and retarded act of love.
Brian McGreevy
#76. There is a deep - and usually frustrated - desire in the heart of everyone to act with benevolence rather than selfishness, and one fine instance of generosity can inspire dozens more.
Xenophon
#77. Life. It's your birthday present. Open it up and play with it. Act like you like it. (The One who gave it to you is watching, after all. Don't want to hurt his feelings.) And if you don't like your life, CHANGE IT. It is all yours.
Jill Conner Browne
#78. Here's the problem: I don't like who I've become when my iPhone is within reach. I find myself checking e-mails and responding to texts throughout the day with some kind of Pavlovian ferocity - it's not a conscious act, but a reflexive one.
Josh Radnor
#79. The process of becoming is not of doing but simply an act of observing. The internal process has been designed in such a way that it seems impossible for you to sit quietly even for some time at one place.
Roshan Sharma
#80. One of the most important lessons we can glean from the environmental movement is to 'think globally and act locally.'
Mike Love
#81. To be a good fighter pilot, there is one prime requisite think fast, and act faster.
John Trevor Godfrey
#82. I really enjoyed multicamera comedy. You film in front of a live audience, and it's kind of the best of both worlds. It's like doing a one-act play every week, but if you screw your lines up, you get to do it over.
Alan Ruck
#83. Consider a situation where we refuse to pay attention to the less fortunate people in our neighbourhoods. If every single person in the elite of our society will take care of at least one child, most of the street kids would be taken care of. Yet, we act as if it is none of our business.
Sunday Adelaja
#84. It only takes one person, one small act of stepping from the dark to the light.
Dave Eggers
#85. Mortification is basic to the act of photographing. The person is mobile, ... then I freeze one moment in his movement, a mere five-hundredth of a second of that person's life-time. That's a very meager or small extract from a life.
August Sander
#86. Somewhere, rational Sophie is thinking that it's not such a good idea to let my guard down so much, the not so rational one just wants to act normal, have fun, and punch the rational Sophie in the face.
Nikki Rae
#87. To be a champion you must act like one, act like a champion.
Lou Ferrigno
#88. Let me get this straight," he said. "You'll give me all the kingdoms of the Earth if I just bow down and do one act of worship for you?" Dresden
James S.A. Corey
#89. The heart is a river. The act of writing is the moving water that holds the banks apart, keeps the muscle of words flexing so that the reader can be carried along by this movement. To be given space and the chance to leave one's earthly world. Is there any greater freedom than this?
Helen Humphreys
#90. The act of communicating with one another is the beginning of friendship.
Lailah Gifty Akita
#91. One performs a very different act when reading a movie and when reading a novel. Your attention behaves differently.
Manuel Puig
#92. The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes. The only adventure that is doomed from the start is the one we do not attempt.
Paul-Emile Victor
#93. To break one's mask in the presence of someone you reject is an act of permanent separation. To say that you are finished with them in your life, so much so that you do not worry about them seeing your true face. You'll never see them again, so your secrets are nothing in their hands.
Sara Raasch
#94. Every hunchback has his gypsy, each phantom his diva, and flames of passion consume witches and martyrs alike. For any lonely monster, tradition demands that one sacrificial soul seek immolation.
Ashe to ashes.
It remains the ultimate, transformative act of love.
Robert Dunbar
#95. If you can't honor a deal, make a new one and try to honor it. And when you're dealing with your investors' money, you have to act as if God himself wrote you the check.
Ryan Blair
#96. A cowardly act! What do I care about that? You may be sure that I should never fear to commit one if it were to my advantage.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#97. It was one thingfor a person who didn't really know me to act distant, but it was quite another for someone to get to know me and then back away.
Curtis Sittenfeld
#98. Be mindful 24 hours a day, not just during the one hour you may allot for formal meditation or reading scripture and reciting prayers. Each act must be carried out in mindfulness.
Nhat Hanh
#99. Rarely did events play out as imagined, in any case. The order of future events was transient. In the same way that the past was reconfigured by selective memory, future events, too, were moving targets. One could only act on instinct, grab hold of an intuited perfect moment, and spring into action.
James Luceno
#100. If you want to be treated like a mother, act like one.
Jeannette Walls
