“As a writer one is allowed to have conversations with oneself.”

What is considered sane in writers is made for the rest of the human race.

The darker the subject, the more light you must try to shed on the matter. And vice versa.

Few women care to be laughed at and men not at all, except for large sums of money.

There is a school of thought that believes that sleep is for the night. You appear to be out to disprove them.

Whatever devices you use should always be there to serve the theme. If the theme has been overtaken by the device, then something’s wrong.

You don’t have to bother with men, they believe any compliment automatically.

Cats names are more for human benefit. They give one a certain degree more confidence that the animal belongs to you.

I think of a plot, I think of an idea, and then I wonder, How can I get that onto the stage?.

So as not to disturb me in my little nook behind the biography shelves.

Custard pie humour is fairly universal, but at the other end, which I’m more interested in, there’s the humour that hovers on the darkness, that walks in the shadow of something else, not always that obvious.

Plays by Alan Ayckbourn have been attracting larger audiences in the regional theatres than those of Shakespeare.

A gentleman … sleeps at his work. That’s what work’s for. Why do you think they have the SILENCE notices in the library?

What I find interesting is how close you can run the laughter along the seam of seriousness, and occasionally cross it, so that half the house genuinely doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

He really is terribly heavy going. Like running up hill in roller skates.

Salad, I can’t bear salad. It grows while you’re eating it, you know.

There are very few people on top of life, and the rest of us don’t like them very much.

The reason why so few people are agreeable in conversation is that each is thinking more about what he intends to say than others are saying.

Marriage is one long conversation, chequered by disputes.

A person isn’t who they are during the last conversation you had with them – they’re who they’ve been throughout your whole relationship.

No animal should ever jump up on the dining-room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation.

My lawyer has been a good friend of mine for a long time. He and I continuously have conversations.

The conversational overachiever is someone whose grasp exceeds his reach. This is possible but not attractive.

Conceit causes more conversation than wit.

Polite conversation is rarely either.