[When you write a play] you walk into a forest without a knife, without a compass. But . . . if you have a sense of geography, you find that you're clearing a path and getting to the right place.

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

It's always painful when you're writing memoirs because you've got to go through the dark places, but it gives you a chance to find out the person you really are, not the person you thought you were.

He's too nervous to kill himself. He wears his seat belt in a drive-in movie.

Everyone thinks they can write a play; you just write down what happened to you. But the art of it is drawing from all the moments of your life.

People with honorary awards are looked upon with disfavor. Would you let an honorary mechanic fix your brand-new Mercedes?

Writers feel like a middleman, standing with pen in hand over the page. A force greater than me stands above telling me what to write. That may sound romantic, but that's how it feels.