And so tonight we're going to make the lie true, and when that's done, I'll bring the liquor back here and we'll get drunk together, here, tonight, in this place that death has come into...

I think time is a merciless thing. I think life is a process of burning oneself out and time is the fire that burns you.

For a creative person there's just as much pleasure in writing an eight-line poem as there is in writing a blockbuster play ... of the old '50s type.

What on earth can you do on this earth but catch at whatever comes near you, with both your fingers, until your fingers are broken?

I’m a poet. And then I put the poetry in the drama. I put it in short stories, and I put it in the plays. Poetry’s poetry. It doesn’t have to be called a poem, you know.

It is only in his work that an artist can find reality and satisfaction, for the actual world is less intense than the world of his invention and consequently his life, without recourse to violent disorder, does not seem very substantial. The right condition for him is that in which his work in not only convenient but unavoidable.

Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person.