A theme is always necessary, a plain, simple, unadorned theme to confuse the ignorant.

But success and failure are not true opposites, and they're not even in the same class. I mean, they're not even a couch and a chair.

A theme is always necessary, a plain, simple, unadorned theme to confuse the ignorant.

Things start out as hopes and end up as habits.

Childhood is less clear to me than to many people: when it ended I turned my face away from it for no reason that I know about, certainly without the usual reason of unhappy memories. For many years that worried me, but then I discovered that the tales of former children are seldom to be trusted. Some people supply too many past victories or pleasures with which to comfort themselves, and other people cling to pains, real and imagined, to excuse what they have become.

The world is out of shapewhen there are hungry men.

I've always had great satisfaction out of writing the plays. I've not always had great satisfaction out of seeing them produced-although often I've had satisfaction there. When things go well in production, on opening there's no nicer feeling in the world-what could be nicer than watching an audience respond? You can't that from a book. It's a fine feeling to walk into the theater and see living people respond to something you've done.