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.

A city whose living immediacy is so urgent that when I am in it I lose all sense of the past.

Not content to have the audience in the palm of his hand, he goes one further and clenches his fist.

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.

The vengeful hag is played by Ingrid Bergman, which is like casting Eleanor Roosevelt as Lizzie Borden.

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

If there's one thing I can't bear, it's people who are wise during the event.