I don't like losing the words, as you have to, when I'm asked to turn a play into a movie. It's not a matter of ego . . . I'm just better able to create the character for an audience through words rather than through actions.

New York is not Mecca. It just smells like it.

Don't listen to those who say, you taking too big a chance. Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely be rubbed out by today.

You get attached to the way you write, and I'm attached to notebooks. That's where I really write the plays. Just two or three pages at a time, then I transfer to the typewriter and rewrite while I type.

I feel like writing about a time when I was probably, and think all of us are, the happiest before the obligations start in.

Never underestimate the stimulation of eccentricity.

If you can go through life without experiencing pain you probably haven't been born yet.