As writers, we can't predict who might come along who might find our offerings valuable.

What I'm really involved in when I'm writing is something that no one ever mentions when they see any play. Writing is like trying to make gunpowder out of chemicals. You have these words and sentences and the strange meanings and associations that are attached to the words and sentences, and you're somehow cooking these things all up so that they suddenly explode and have a powerful effect. That's what absorbs me from day to day in writing a play.

"The Fever" is a one-person play. I decided I would perform it myself, and I decided I would not perform it in theaters, because the character in the play says certain things that I meant.

If I had even the tiniest scrap of advice to give to a young actor who was figuring out how to audition, I would say don't memorize the script The reality about auditions is that 98 percent of the results has to do with what you are, not with what you did in the audition.

I think the whole system of education would change if I were in charge and had the ability to make changes. I don't think I would keep Princeton exactly being Princeton.

Who says one instance of writing has anything in common with another instance?

We're in an emergency situation. The United States has become an absolutely terrifying country, and I would hope that I could participate in some way in stopping the horror and the brutality.