One has to have a complicated kind of optimism. You can't refuse to look at how horrible things are.

Nothing's lost forever.

When I'm writing a new play, there's a period where I know I shouldn't be out in public much. I imagine most people who create go through something like this. You willfully loosen some of the inner straps that hold your core together.

It has always seemed to me that Barack Obama has studied intensely and learned a great deal from Lincoln.

In a sense, I feel like the job of the artist at all times is essentially the same, which is simply to tell the truth. I mean, I'm nervous about any prescriptions for what a writer should or shouldn't do.

I don't know anything about making movies. I'd never been on a film set. I'm really kind of an idiot when it comes to figuring out where objects are in space. If they're both moving, I can't do the math. If you ever see me driving down a road, go somewhere else quickly.

I don't write political plays in the sense that I'm writing essays that are kind of disguised as plays. I would really defy anyone to watch any of my plays and say 'Well, here's the point.'