John Lahr

“To be a star is to own the world and all the people in it. After a while, this ownership becomes dull.”

“Fame is a spiritual drug. It is often a substitute for the love you were missing in childhood.”

“The critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising.”

“Comedy, we may say, is society protecting itself - with a smile.”

“Laughter is the mind sneezing.”

“A man who has no secrets from his wife either has no secrets or no wife.”

“If you know how to make people laugh, you have a lot of power.”

“The first responsibility of a writer is to be a good writer.”

“The audience is the other half of the performance.”

“Biography is a prism through which the lives of public figures are refracted into cultural history.”

“What we call personality is often a defensive structure, a carapace built to protect a vulnerable self.”

“Life is a gesture, a constant proffer of words and acts and services.”