“That’s what I like about [smoking] . . . taking a drag off of death, Mmm! Gives me a sense of controlling my own destiny. What power! What exhilaration! Want a drag?”

But here’s the thing: what you do as a screenwriter is you sell your copyright. As a novelist, as a poet, as a playwright, you maintain your copyright.

I did write a couple of original screenplays, but I’d rather write plays.

I love to work, although sometimes I can spend whole days doing nothing more than picking the lint off the carpet and talking to my mother on the phone.

Plays are so much more special if they’ve never ever had a production, but I think you can really work on a play and make it better with each production.

I love writing for the screen.

The impetus behind going to graduate school was a year after graduating from college spent in Dallas working at the dog food factory and Bank America and not having met success in my chosen field, which at that point was being an actress.

It’s called Sisters of the Winter Madrigal. It was interesting for me to see it done after so many years; because I wrote it and I didn’t realize what a rage I was in.

The next thing I wrote was in a writing class at night school. It was about a poor woman who worked at a dime store and who was all alone for Christmas in Laurel, Mississippi.

In movement class, you had to lie on the floor and get your alignment in to pass the class.

I was just restless with being in school; so I went out to Los Angeles.

My first few plays took place in the South and even The Lucky Spot was in the thirties but in Louisiana.

And all writing is creating or spinning dreams for other people so they won’t have to bother doing it themselves.

It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.

What I loved about the acting class was that you got to think all day long about a person that wasn’t you, and figure out why they were sad and what they wanted, what they dreamed.

I’m very into the first production of the show.

I tried to start a theatre in LA and failed miserably, but I was probably not meant to raise money.

Smokers, male and female, inject and excuse idleness in their lives every time they light a cigarette.

I haven’t stopped smoking; anything.

I’ve had to fight for roles and I’ve lost a hundred roles, but ‘Smoking’ and ‘Smith’ were phone calls. That’s the dream.

It is facile to imply that smoking, alcoholism, overeating, or other ingrained patters can be upended without real effort. Genuine change requires work and self-understanding of the cravings driving behaviours.

Reality doesn’t have any preconceived ideas. You’ve got to learn how to smoke the cigarette, not act smoking the cigarette.

Everything that’s born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they’re all on fire, and we’re all trapped.

Smoking dope and hanging up Che’s picture is no more a commitment than drinking milk and collecting postage stamps.

Smoking dope and hanging up Che’s picture is no more a commitment than drinking milk and collecting postage stamps.