Sometimes people are so close to the material, they miss an important cross-reference. You can't drop this line because half an hour later, it affects that line. And the writer is the person who knows that immediately.

Imagination without skill gives us contemporary art.

I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you might nudge the world a little or make a poem that children will speak for you when you are dead.

I don't keep a diary and I throw away nearly all the paper I might have kept. I don't keep an archive. There's something worrying about my make-up that I try to leave no trace of myself apart from my plays.

My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful.

I'm offended by things and take pathetic little stands against them.

I still believe that if your aim is to change the world, journalism is a more immediate short-term weapon.