“The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt that it didn’t matter.”

I don’t like symbolism that hits you over the head. A symbol should not be a cymbal.

There is chaos behind the civility, of course.

I am not interested in living in a city where there isn’t a production by Samuel Beckett running.

There are always going to be more actors than anybody can ever use.

Writing has got to be an act of discovery. Finding out things about what one is writing about.

You’re alive only once, as far as we know, and what could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn’t lived it?

If you have no wounds, how can you know if you’re alive?

When people don’t like the way a play ends, they’re likely to blame the play.

What people really want in the theater is fantasy involvement and not reality involvement.

Remember one thing about democracy. We can have anything we want and at the same time, we always end up with exactly what we deserve.

First, I’ll kill the dog with kindness, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll just kill him.

The only time I’ll get good reviews is if I kill myself.

One must let the play happen to one; one must let the mind loose to respond as it will, to receive impressions, to sense rather than know, to gather rather than immediately understand.

When a play enters my consciousness, is already a fairly well-developed fetus. I don’t put down a word until the play seems ready to be written.

American critics are like American universities. They both have dull and half-dead faculties.

Dashed hopes and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested.

I’m a big cockeyed optimist. I try to accentuate the positive as opposed to the negative.

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

Red is a strong, happy, optimistic color, and I like having fun with it, you know? Like, when colors clash – I love that strangeness.

Optimism – the doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.

Optimist – A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.

Your life shows up for you when you show up for your life.

I’ve seen very few people in the world accomplish anything unless they were optimists.

Optimism is the true moral courage.