Pathos truly is the mode for the pessimist. But tragedy requires a nicer balance between what is possible and what is impossible. And it is curious, although edifying, that the plays we revere, century after century, are the tragedies. In them, and in them alone, lies the belief-optimistic, if you will, in the perfectibility of man.

Controlled hysteria is what's required. To exist constantly in a state of controlled hysteria. It's agony. But everyone has agony. The difference is that I try to take my agony home and teach it to sing.

The mission of the theatre, after all, is to change, to raise the consciousness of people to their human possibilities.

PROCTOR--he knows it is insane: No, it is not the same! What others say and what i sign to is not the same!

It is time that we, who are without kings, took up this bright thread of our history and followed it to the only place it can possibly lead in our time-the heart and spirit of the average man.

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

One had the right to write because other people needed news of the inner world, and if they went too long without such news they would go mad with the chaos of their lives.