One must let the play happen to one; one must let the mind loose to respond as it will, to receive impressions, to sense rather than know, to gather rather than immediately understand.

Sometimes it's necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.

About four years ago I made a list, for my own amusement, of the playwrights, the contemporary playwrights, by whom critics said I'd been influenced. I listed twenty-five. It included five playwrights whose work I didn't know, so I read these five playwrights and indeed now I suppose I can say I have been influenced by them. The problem is that the people who write these articles find the inevitable similarities of people writing in the same generation, in the same century, and on the same planet, and they put them together in a group.

The final evaluation of a play has nothing to do with immediate audience or critical response.

Martha: Truth or illusion, George; you don't know the difference. George: No, but we must carry on as though we did. Martha: Amen.

Martha: Oh, I like your anger. I think that's what I like about you most. Your anger.

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