“Writing has got to be an act of discovery, I write to find out what I’m thinking about.”

One must let the play happen to one; one must let the mind loose to respond as it will, to receive impressions, to sense rather than know, to gather rather than immediately understand.

When a play enters my consciousness, is already a fairly well-developed fetus. I don’t put down a word until the play seems ready to be written.

American critics are like American universities. They both have dull and half-dead faculties.

Dashed hopes and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested.

Art has an obligation to offend.

As a playwright, I imagine that in one fashion or another I’ve been influenced by every single play I’ve ever experienced.

Art should never try to be popular.

I write to find out what I’m talking about.

When you get old, you can’t talk to people because people snap at you…. That’s why you become deaf, so you won’t be able to hear people talking to you that way.

Creativity is magic. Don’t examine it too closely.

Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf means who’s afraid of the big bad wolf, who’s afraid of living life without false illusions.

If you’re willing to fail interestingly, you tend to succeed interestingly.

I don’t feel that catharsis in a play necessarily takes place during the course of a play. Often it should take place afterward.

What I mean by an educated taste is someone who has the same tastes that I have.

Death is release, if you’ve lived all right.

A play is fiction and fiction is fact distilled into truth.