“Well, when you write about people of a certain age we are in a postsexual situation. If I write about younger people then I write sexually, because their drive is sexual. It depends upon the circumstances.”

I am pleased and reassured by the fact that a lot of younger playwrights seem to pay me some attention and gain some nourishment from what I do.

The act of creation, as you very well know, is a lonely and private matter and has nothing to do with the public area… the performance of the work one creates.

A playwright has a responsibility in his society not to aid it, or comfort it, but to comment and criticize it.

Few sensible authors are happy discussing the creative process–it is, after all, black magic.

In a democracy you cannot stop public access to that art that will most misinform the people. You cannot stop people from being misinformed. But what you can do is to educate the people to the point that they will throw the rascals out.

I have been both overpraised and under praised. I assume by the time I finish writing — and I plan to go on writing until I’m 90 or gaga it will all equal itself out.

Martha: Oh, I like your anger. I think that’s what I like about you most. Your anger.

Your source material is the people you know, not those you don’t know, but every character is an extension of the author’s own personality.

It always seems to me better to slough off the answer to a question that I consider to be a terrible invasion of privacy – the kind of privacy that a writer must keep for himself.

I think I was probably wondering, having looked at human beings for a long time, wondering if evolution ever took place. And I still have my doubts.

Musical beds is the faculty sport around here.

Progress is a set of assumptions.

A writer is a controlled schizophrenic.

I suppose, writing a play is finding out what the play is.

People often ask me how long it takes me to write a play, and I tell them ‘all of my life.’

I am sick of the disparity between things as they are and as they should be. I’m tired.I’m tired of the truth and I’m tired of lying about the truth.