The arts are the only things that separate us from the other animals. The arts are not decorative. ... They are essential to our comprehension of consciousness and ourselves.

A writer is a controlled schizophrenic.

As a fairly objective judgment, I do think that my plays as they come out are better than most other things that are put on the same year. But that doesn't make them very good necessarily.

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?

American critics are like American universities. They both have dull and half-dead faculties.

To a certain extent I imagine a play is completely finished in my mind - in my case, at any rate - without my knowing it, before I sit down to write.

I think you remember everything ... you just can't bring it to mind all the time.