“In Chekhov, when people leave, a carriage is taking them away forever.”

I had a sort of bad experiences as a playwright early on, when directors were putting in huge concepts that I didn’t intend, or they were stylizing something that was compromising the play

I imagine a soul is a little perfect crystal egg floating in your chest.

One of the tricks to writing great plays is to get people in a room together and not let them leave.

If it weren’t for the smell of death clinging to the walls, you might think it was your family’s turn to host the month neighborhood potluck supper.

I’ve never really felt that I’ve had the right hair cut, or had the right clothes.

I write till the end at least a draft of a play or a novel; but sometimes,

I’m pretty obsessive-compulsive and I’m very fast.

I began stealing a lot of ideas from other directors I had worked with.

I don’t know where the characters are going to go or what’s going to happen.

I find that more and more I’m trying to entertain myself when I’m working, because I know the work’s going to go to a horrible place.

It was like losing an important weight-bearing bone, and I knew I would spend the rest of my life trying to figure out how to walk the streets without it.

I don’t know if I have the ability to write an ending like My Fair Lady’s, when everyone gets what they want after a few minor conflicts.

The stakes are so high just for someone to make a simple exit.

And you can’t go anywhere in the sky unless you have a plane or some kind of rocket.

I’ve written some criticism, and I really enjoy it because I think it’s important for people to know that theatre is vital.

I suffer from and enjoy an incredibly vivid dream life. A lot of times there is a sort-of narrative and other times they are just funhouses of non-linear imagery and other scary stuff.

Motivation is simple. You eliminate those who are not motivated.

An individual ant, even though it has a brain about a millionth of a size of a human being’s, can learn a maze; the kind we use is a simple rat maze in a laboratory. They can learn it about one-half as fast as a rat.

I’m very pleased to be here. Let’s face it, at my age I’m very pleased to be anywhere.

I analyse in my own way, in very simple, no-jargon language. If somebody is talking in very complicated way, I never like that.

Well, you know, ‘Spaceballs’ is a weird combination, because it’s a simple, sweet little fairytale, and it’s crazy and out-there and making fun of and taking apart sci-fi, ‘Star Wars’, and ‘Star Trek’.

To be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in spring – these are some of the rewards of the simple life.

The wind can be quite extreme in England. We are not familiar with that in Germany, and you have to keep things simple.

Everybody loved ‘The A-Team’ because it was entertainment, pure and simple.