Eve Ensler

People are sad. People are broke. People are worried about money, people are worried that they're not enough and not amounting to anything and they don't feel good about themselves. People have rough times, and everybody's pretending it's not true, and we need to break that veneer. ”

I grew up in a tradition where having ideas and contributing to the community and creating art that had an impact on the world mattered. That's part of the Jewish tradition. ”

I think when people begin to tell their stories, everything changes, because not only are you legitimised in the telling of your story and are you found, literally, like you matter, you exist in the telling of your story, but when you hear your story be told, you suddenly exist in community and with others. ”

Theater has an incredible capacity to move people to social change, to address issues, to inspire social revolution. ”

My dream is that people will find a way back home, into their bodies, to connect with the earth, to connect with each other, to connect with the poor, to connect with the broken, to connect with the needy, to connect with people calling out all around us, to connect with the beauty, poetry, the wildness. ”

I think I've always had these two currents, equally strong, of wanting to change the world and make the world better and fight injustices and fight violence, and then being an artist, which is a very different strain. ”

Security isn't what I hunger for. I hunger for change. I hunger for connection. ”

I think the world is always improving and always not improving. I think that both are simultaneously happening all the time. ”

Do I think it's great that we have a celebrity system where some people matter and some people don't? No. But do I think we'll always create icons and legends? Yeah, I probably do. ”

I was born in Manhattan and grew up in Scarsdale. Scarsdale didn't work for me as a place at all. ”