Rewriting isn't just about dialogue, it's the order of the scenes, how you finish a scene, how you get into a scene. All these final decisions are best made when you're there, watching. It's really enjoyable, but you've got to be there at the director's invitation. You can't just barge in and say, "I'm the writer."

I'm hopeless at looking into myself and trying to see how things are working and why.

The whole philosophy of modern times is to dissolve distinctions between individuals and deal with them as large collections of people. It's essentially self-interested on the part of authority.

Nowadays, an artist is someone who makes art mean the things he does.

Rosencrantz: I don't believe in it anyway. Guildenstern: What? Rosencrantz: England. Guildenstern: Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then?

A genuine love of learning is one of the two delinquencies which cause blindness and lead a young man to ruin.

James Joyce - an essentially private man who wished his total indifference to public notice to be universally recognized.