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 really love being in postproduction. First of all, it's all quite self-interested: You can protect things.

I've got no interest in educating or instructing people.

I write plays because writing dialogue is the only respectable way of contradicting yourself. I put a position, rebut it, refute the rebuttal, and rebut the refutation.

I began writing for theater, and maybe because of that I've always thought of myself as a theater writer who does work in film sometimes.

We are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style.

I have to go with what I do, and what I do has more to do with what people say to each other than telling a story through images. Of course, you're trying to do both. And there are some people who are brilliant at it, but I don't consider myself to be particularly good at it. My mind gets into a verbal mode.