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.

Once you start compromising your thoughts, you're a candidate for mediocrity.

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

Give your mind a chance to travel through foreign languages.

I don't want to restrict the life of a play to a particular production. The original actors might leave after the first six months, and I want the play to last 30 or 40 years. You write for the character, not the actor on the stage.

I never write a play with an eye to film.

Talent is the gift plus the passion - a desire to succeed so intense that no force on earth can stop it.