“I have always been more interested in creating a character that contains something crippled. I think nearly all of us have some kind of defect.”

But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really.

An artist must believe in himself – Possibly not so passionately as Lawrence – but passionately.

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

It is only in his work that an artist can find reality and satisfaction, for the actual world is less intense than the world of his invention and consequently his life, without recourse to violent disorder, does not seem very substantial.

I try to work every day because you have no refuge but writing.

William Saroyan wrote a great play on this theme, that purity of heart is the one success worth having. “In the time of your life–live!”

The strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love.

Youth must be wanton, youth must be quick, Dance to the candle while lasteth the wick.

Take by surprise and the world gives up resistance.

Openings come quickly, sometimes, like blue space in running clouds. A complete overcast, then a blaze of light.

The human heart would never pass the drunk test…. If you took the human heart out of the human body and put a pair of legs on it and told it to walk a straight line, it couldn’t do it.

Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one’s own character to himself.

Time doesn’t take away from true friendship, nor does separation.

Don’t you just love these long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn’t just an hour — but a little bit of eternity dropped in your hands — and who knows what to do with it?

A prayer for the wild at heart kept in cages.

Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going.

Early on in my career, I remember running – fleeing – to the theater as a way of coping with all the meshugaas that was going on for me.

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

All I am is what I’m going after.

If you get all tangled up, just tango on.

I very rarely read any fiction. I love biographies; I read about all kinds of people.

Even if all the cattle on the range look pretty much alike.

I go all over the world, I have access to many things, many people, many places and it’s wonderful. But now I’m at a point where.

The harder you work, the luckier you get” is true in all things.