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

A comedy is just a tragedy interrupted, I once said. Do you finish with the kiss or when she opens her eyes to tell him she loves him and sees blonde hairs on his collar?

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.

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.

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

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.

If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?

I want to be a collaborative thing and be part of the audience and have them be part of me.

I would like to get rid of the homophobes, sexists, and racists in our audience. I know they’re out there and it really bothers me.

Writing a description for this thing for general audiences is bloody hard. There’s nothing to relate it to.

I would love to have an ocean of love right now. That said, the number-one rule of acting is, ‘Do not seek approval from the audience.’ People don’t realize that. You can’t do stuff to get applause. You have to live in the truth.

I don’t seek validation outside, not even with the audience. Today they like me, but tomorrow they may hate me. I don’t want to be anybody’s role model.

I’ve never been one to sit back and go, ‘I’d better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don’t want to lose them.’

I think I have an inner confidence that my tastes are pretty simple, that what I find funny finds a wide audience.