Plays are literature: the word, the idea. Film is much more like the form in which we dream - in action and images (Television is furniture). I think a great play can only be a play. It fits the stage better than it fits the screen. Some stories insist on being film, can't be contained on stage. In the end, all writing serves to answer the same question: Why are we alive? And the form the question takes - play, film, novel - is dictated, I suppose, by whether its story is driven by character or place.

Maybe all theatre is going to be irrelevant for all time.

Any actor, any playwright who's worked a life in the theater knows how to do things cheaply and quickly. It's just all by necessity. Invention is everything.

I felt no need to write a German-bashing play.

If you prepare, and you've got wonderful, bright people who get it, who accept and appreciate your preparation, then you don't have to explain yourself 9,000 times.

You simply can't make someone love you if they don't. You must choose someone who already loves you. If you choose someone who does not love you, this is the sort of love you must want.

I began coming to Paris in the 1960s when I was told audiences here liked my work. More than 20 of my plays have been produced in Paris, and several have had long runs and have returned in revivals.