A play is basically a long, formalistic polemic. You can write it without the poetry, and if you do, you may have a pretty good play. We know this because we see plays in translation. Not many people speak Norwegian or Danish or whatever guys like Ibsen spoke, or Russian - yet we understand Chekhov and the others.

Art and mass entertainment and propaganda, they can all be plotted on the same graph, but there is a difference.

As long as the protagonist wants something, the audience will want something.

You get rich through luck. You get rich through crime. You get rich through fulfilling the needs of another. You can be as greedy as you like. If you can’t do one of those three things, you ain’t going to get any money.

You know, young actors say all the time, 'Should I use my own life experience?' And my response is, 'What choice do you have?'

The audience perceives only what the actor wants to do to the other actor.

I hate the computer. I hate their spell-check. I won't ever do e-mail.