Unless you go through all the genuine angers you feel, both justified and unjustified, the feelings of love that you have will not have any legitimate base and will be at least partially false. Plus, eventually you will go crazy.

My biggest problem with organized religion is that God has been imagined as a human being with emotions. I feel if you let go of that, then it's possible to see God as a force, to connect to him or her spiritually.

Will this long presidency of George W. Bush ever be over? Living through it is starting to seem like some ghastly, upsetting novel in which the hero is the country, and the president is this disturbing, pig-headed, oblivious villain who makes things worse and worse and worse.

In my 20s, I was more cynical/despairing (even though I still wrote comically), but I often sent audiences home with rather dark last moments. After a while though, I don't want to send the audience home bummed out, or distressed ... I want to see what's hopeful. I'm not overly cheery all the time, and yet I'm not suicidal either. I do think people can make choices that make their lives happier.

The first several scenes are about sexual addiction. They're not specifically political at all... I didn't sit down and think, ''I am going to write something about the religious right.'' I started out by writing something about sexual addiction, and it evolved... I don't look at a calendar and say: ''Oh! There's going to be an election in 1996. I think now, in 1993, I'll start writing a play that'll be ready for it.''

When my parents separated, I was very grateful.

I need a life. I need a friend. I need a change. But nothing ever changes.