Art has an obligation to offend

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

The arts are the only things that separate us from the other animals. The arts are not decorative. ... They are essential to our comprehension of consciousness and ourselves.

Sometimes it's necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.

Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.

The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt that it didn't matter.

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

You're alive only once, as far as we know, and what could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it?

You gotta have swine to show you where the truffles are.

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.

School curricula that ignore the arts produce highly educated Barbarians

I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research.

This rose of pearl-coated infinity transforms the diseased slums of a broken heart into a palace made of psalms and gold.

A good supply of resignation is of the first importance in providing for the journey of life.

That’s the way we see life: your community is your survival. And if you live in a small community like this, even the people you hate you have as friends.

Jesus is Santa Claus for Adults.

There are only two things to write about: life and death.

We all dream of things we cannot have.

Bread without butter or coffee without milk is an awful calamity, as if everything before being put in our mouth must first be held under a cow.

No one who loves life can ignore literature, and no one who loves literature can ignore life.

She'd realize Steve was her soul mate and that she would never love anyone as much as she loved him.