But when I got to SMU and decided to take a playwriting class, I said this isn't a bad idea. IfI write characters, they could be as dumb as me, and I don't have to be very smart.

I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, really in suburbia, so my mother was in community theatre plays.

But here's the thing: what you do as a screenwriter is you sell your copyright. As a novelist, as a poet, as a playwright, you maintain your copyright.

I did write a couple of original screenplays, but I'd rather write plays.

There are probably brilliant people, geniuses, alive today who don't even know how to say, "Hello, how do you do?" because their minds are absorbed with electronic images.

I tried to start a theatre in LA and failed miserably, but I was probably not meant to raise money.

Some really good things kind of swing both ways and I like to see people that can swing really, really, really sad and horrible and terrible and really, really, really beautiful and funny.