Acting is a nice childish profession - pretending you're someone else and at the same time selling yourself.

Acting is a nice childish profession - pretending you're someone else and at the same time selling yourself.

The point of acting is to pretend you're someone else and sell a story.

The point of acting is to pretend you're someone else and sell a story.

Prologues like compliments are loss of time;
'Tis penning bows and making legs in rhyme.

Prologues like compliments are loss of time;
'Tis penning bows and making legs in rhyme.

My only regret in the theatre is that I could never sit out front
and watch me.

My only regret in the theatre is that I could never sit out front
and watch me.

A good actor must never be in love with anyone but himself.

A good actor must never be in love with anyone but himself.

I sweat. If anything comes easy to me I mistrust it.

I sweat. If anything comes easy to me I mistrust it.

A long, exact, and serious comedy;
In every scene some moral let it teach,
And, if it read more

A long, exact, and serious comedy;
In every scene some moral let it teach,
And, if it can, at once both please and preach.

Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks;
Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks.
The founder's read more

Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks;
Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks.
The founder's you: the table is the place:
The carvers we: the prologue is the grace.
Each act, a course, each scene, a different dish,
Though we're in Lent, I doubt you're still for flesh.
Satire's the sauce, high-season'd, sharp and rough.
Kind masks and beaux, I hope you're pepperproof?
Wit is the wine; but 'tis so scarce the true
Poets, like vintners, balderdash and brew.
Your surly scenes, where rant and bloodshed join.
Are butcher's meat, a battle's sirloin:
Your scenes of love, so flowing, soft and chaste,
Are water-gruel without salt or taste.

And Tragedy should blush as much to stoop
To the low mimic follies of a farce,
As read more

And Tragedy should blush as much to stoop
To the low mimic follies of a farce,
As a grave matron would to dance with girls.