Every window in Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco.

It's a long way from not having enough serotonin to thinking the world is "stale, flat and unprofitable"; even further to writing a play about a man driven by that thought.

Are you crazy? It's a common phrase, I know. But it means something particular to me: the tunnels, the security screens, the plastic forks, the shimmering, ever-shifting borderline that like all boundaries beckons and asks to be crossed. I do not want to cross it again.

For many of us, the hospital was as much a refuge as it was a prison. Though we were cut off from the world and all the trouble we enjoyed stirring up out there, we were also cut off from the demands and expectations that had driven us crazy. What could be expected of us now that we were stowed away in a loony bin?

My chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom came from the fact that I was living a life based on my incapacities, which were numerous.

My family had a lot of characteristics - achievements, ambitions, talents, expectations - that all seemed to be recessive in me.

As far as I could see, life demanded skills I didn't have.