I imagine as an axiom you could say that the better the play, the less "creativity" the director need exert.

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

All life is the struggle, the effort to be itself.

Not indolence but congenial work is man's Divinely allotted portion.

Look. All books are weird when you think about it.... It goes without saying that real life is also weird.

I wasn't sued out of medicine, I wasn't arbitrated out of the profession.

Being American is, I think, a very difficult thing in art, because all the elements are European.

Pain is the mind. It's the mind. It's the thoughts of the mind.

I can't think of a more mediocre human talent than George Bush. He obviously is a product of family advantage, and he's the worst American President of all time.

I just feel that music is a great life, because it's very rewarding. It's a gratification. You do this for yourself, and you also do this for other people.

I make very basic country rustic furniture.

They hadn't much faith in travel, nor a great belief in a change of scene as a panacea for spiritual ills; they were simply glad to be going.