A play's an interpretation. It is not a report. And that is the beginning of its poetry because, in order to interpret, you have to distort toward a symbolic construction of what happened, and as that distortion takes place, you begin to leave out and overemphasize and consequently deliver up life as a unity rather than as a chaos, and any such attempt, the more intense it is, the more poetic it becomes.

The closer a man approaches tragedy the more intense is his concentration of emotion upon the fixed point of his commitment, which is to say the closer he approaches what in life we call fanaticism.

Rise early. Write. Disappoint your sons. Read the newspaper. Go to bed early. Success.

I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been.

The theater is so endlessly fascinating because it's so accidental. It's so much like life.

You specialize in something until one day it is specializing in you.

They tried to escape technology, to stay away from that and still have relationships with their fellow humans. Very difficult.