I've never written an original piece for film; all the original things I've done are for the stage.

Words... They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good any more... I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you're dead.

Never believe in mirrors or newspapers.

An artist is the magician put among men to gratify - capriciously - their urge for immortality.

And for the last three minutes on the wind of a windless day I have heard the sound of drums and flute.

If you could stop every atom in its position and direction, and if your mind could comprehend all the actions thus suspended, then if you were really, really good at algebra you could write the formula for all the future; and although nobody can be so clever as to do it, the formula must exist just as if one could.

Maturity is a high price to pay for growing up.