No theater could sanely flourish until there was an umbilical connection between what was happening on the stage and what was happening in the world.

William Congreve is the only sophisticated playwright England has produced; and like Shaw, Sheridan, and Wilde, his nearest rivals, he was brought up in Ireland.

Art and ideology often interact on each other; but the plain fact is that both spring from a common source. Both draw on human experience to explain mankind to itself; both attempt, in very different ways, to assemble coherence from seemingly unrelated phenomena; both stand guard for us against chaos.

Show me a congenital eavesdropper with the instincts of a Peeping Tom and I will show you the making of a dramatist.

A novel is a static thing that one moves through; a play is a dynamic thing that moves past one.

Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself

The unique thing about Margaret Rutherford is that she can act with her chin alone. Among its many moods I especially cherish the chin commanding, the chin in doubt, and the chin at bay.