The Illusion, Tony Kushner

Matamore, 39:
You have two choices:
One: to be seized by the heels and flung
Straight through the celestial crystalline spheres
Into an abyss where the elemental fire will consume
What parts of you remain unripped by broken crystal…
Or Two:
To be transformed by a spell I know
Into the lowliest of creatures, the naked mole rat,
Thereafter to be stepped on by my puissant boot
After which your skin will be made into a little
Ratskin purse for Isabelle to wear,
Embroidered with the words:
Thus died Delamont, traitor to his lord.

Les Liasions Dangereuses

VALMONT: No, no, you made an accusation, you must allow me the opportunity to defend
myself. Now, you were there when my aunt asked me to stay a little longer, and at that time I
only agreed in deference to her, although I was already by no means unaware of your beauty.

TOURVEL: Monsieur . . .

VALMONT: No, the point is, all this has nothing to do with your beauty. As I got to know
you, I began to realize that beauty is the least of your qualities. I became fascinated by your
goodness, I was drawn in by it, I didn’t understand what was happening to me, and it was only
when I began to feel actual physical pain every time you left the room, that it finally dawned on
me: I was in love, for the first time in my life. I knew it was hopeless, of course, but that didn’t
matter to me, because it wasn’t like it always had been, it wasn’t that I wanted to have you, no.
All I wanted was to deserve you. (MME DE TOURVEL rises decisively to her feet.)
 The Illusion, Tony Kushner
Alcandre, 69:
What in this world is
not evanescent? What in this world is real and not
seeming? Love, which seems the realest thing, is really
nothing at all; a simple grey rock is a thousand times
more tangible than love is; and the earth is such a rock,
and love only a breeze that dreams over its surface,
weightless and traceless; and yet love’s more mineral,
more dense, more veined with gold and corrupted with
lead, more bitter and more weighty that the earth’s
profoundest matter. Love is a sea of desire stretched
between shores—only the shores are real, but how
much more compelling the sea. Love is the world’s
infinite mutability; lies, hatred, murder even are all knit
up in it; it is the inevitable blossoming of its opposites,
a magnificent rose smelling faintly of blood. A dream
which makes the world seem… an illusion. The art of
illusion is the art of love, and the art of love is the
blood-red heart of the world. At times I think there’s
nothing else

Body Awareness, Annie Baker

JARED: No, I didn’t touch her. I was… she was there all alone. She was standing near the
water. She said she lived nearby. She was nice. I told her the root of “pond,” that it comes from
the archaic Old English “pound,” and she laughed and said I was funny, and then I just… I
showed it to her for like a second. It was literally for like a second.

(Pause)

I was trying to be sexy. She screamed and then I ran into the water. When I came out she was
gone.