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.

In my early 20s, I studied history and politics, and I really thought that perhaps I would devote my life to that.

My style as a human being is to indulge people who need to escape, yet I insist on confronting them as a playwright. It's quite embarrassing, it's quite unpleasant, it's quite awkward.

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 do things, and other people laugh at them. I rarely know what the joke is supposed to be or why they're laughing.

And my singing, I don't think I could sing Wagner or opera, but I could probably carry a tune. I was in a musical once, but it was never performed.

The life of an actor can be very enviable.