My job as a dramatist is to find out where these characters want to go, and make it as hard as possible for them to get there.

I learned early on that there are all sorts of stories I have no place telling.

The bigger the budget, the less an audience is trusted, and that's the difference between a big-budget film and a small-budget film.

GOOD AS NEW was born out of the idea of writing a play where the stakes were high and the collisions were of a verbal nature. Also I wanted to write a play where people were smarter than I was, and more alive than I feel normally. I became interested in the idea of characters who would surprise me. I guess one could argue that nothing comes out of you that wasn't within you to begin with, but maybe there are ways to trick yourself into becoming more an observer or an advocate for the characters.

I feel like there's a certain kind of laughter missing in the world.

People love conversation, and movies are conversations, and an audience has to participate; it has to fill in some blanks.

The better the script, the less money there is. That's just the economics of the studio system.