Curiously enough, the only two plays that I've done very much revision on were the two adaptations - even though the shape of them was pretty much determined by the original work. With my own plays, the only changes, aside from taking a speech out here, putting one in there (if I thought I dwelled on a point a little too long or didn't make it explicit enough), are very minor; but even though they're very minor - having to do with the inability of actors or the unwillingness of the director to go along with me - I've always regretted them.

There are a number of contemporary playwrights whom I admire enormously, but that's not at all the same thing as being influenced.

Writing has got to be an act of discovery. Finding out things about what one is writing about.

There are only two things to write about: life and death.

I don't pay much attention to how the plays relate thematically to each other. I think that's very dangerous to do, because in the theater one is self-conscious enough without planning ahead or wondering about the thematic relation from one play to the next. One hopes that one is developing, and writing interestingly, and that's where it should end, I think.

I don't feel that catharsis in a play necessarily takes place during the course of a play. Often it should take place afterward.

You're alive only once, as far as we know, and what could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it?