“I would hope that the staffs at juvenile detention centers and reform schools are carefully chosen so that there is a community of support and hope.”

I’ve never really felt good at the parties, but I have enough friends now that I feel social, I used to feel very antisocial, but I think the theater helps.

I think I’m a little more daunted by when the machinery of the play is really huge.

I know that they want certain things and they’re in a certain room and they smell like this and they look like that.

So I started to think like, “well if I’m going to fight against this, I should learn how to direct”.

I’ll take a break for a couple weeks for a project that is paying me money like a television project which I try to stay away from just to stay financially ahead of the game.

The scent goes right to your stomach.

You don’t really develop feelings about a place till you’ve left it. It’s like a girl or a dog.

I grew up eating hamburger helper, macaroni and cheese, and drinking lots of milk, and looked at lots of cows; but I feel like a New Yorker now, I’ve lived here for sixteen years.

When I got inside, I just sort of stood there. There’s nothing stranger than the smell of someone else’s house

Obviously the power of the Times is discouraging. It’s killing new plays, demolishing one after another.

When it’s just a few scenes and a couple of actors behaving in a room, I feel very confident with that.

A typical day for me is I’m writing when I’m not directing.

Mary’s house smelled like lemon furniture polish and oatmeal cookies and logs in a fireplace.

You can always count on the New York Times to cut your legs off.

I appreciate good criticism and I think it’s really important.

You have to escape to survive, as you must survive to escape.

In fiction writing ideas have to be handled extremely carefully.

Some of it is carefully structured and well-thought-out. That’s where the real danger lies.

Carefully watch how people live, get an intuitive sense as to what they might want and then go with it.

He was also removing all traces of any tiny leftover parts, and suddenly a ritual which I’d always found incestuous and gross seemed to me more like a desperate act on Joseph’s part to get out, to leave, to extract every little last remnant and bring it into open air.

I joined another circle and the leader gave us a little leaflet in very small print, asking us to read it carefully and then come prepared to ask questions.

The carefully fostered theory that schoolwork can be made easy and enjoyable breaks down as soon as anything, however trivial, has to be learned.

Weigh risk carefully.

Fast Food Nation is witness to the rigour and seriousness of the best American journalism, readable, reliable and extremely carefully done.