Love is the world's infinite mutability; lies, hatred, murder even, are all knit up in it; it is the inevitable blossoming of its opposites, a magnificent rose smelling faintly of blood.

I'm fairly certain when I die that the obituary will say, 'Author of 'Angels in America' dies.' Unless I'm completely forgotten, and then it won't say anything at all.

Justice precedes beauty. Without justice, beauty is impossible, an obscenity. And when beauty has gone, what does a cameraman do with his eye?

There are two strains, I think, in American playwriting, of importance. One is traditional narrative realism, which is definitely my strain, and then the other great contribution is American musical theater, which is a whole other kettle of fish.

You become a character in a meta-drama into which your own dramatizing has pitched you. The rewards can be fantastic, the punishments dismal; it's a zero sum game, and its guarantor of value, its marker is that you pretend you play it solo, preserving the myth that you alone are the wellspring of your creativity.

I wish you would be more true to your demographic profile. Life is confusing enough.

When I teach writing, I always tell my students you should assume that the audience you're writing for is smarter than you. You can't write if you don't think they're on your side, because then you start to yell at them or preach down to them.