I'm a pragmatic man. I'll veer on the dangerous side, because I love dangerous subjects, but I won't shoot a show in the foot.

The musical has always been in jeopardy - until - or was in jeopardy until it was realised that it is probably the safest living theatre art form.

I don't look back. I look forward and plan new shows. That's really feeding the most important part of working in the theater.

Audiences are quite happy to be astonished, and they don't care who does that astonishing.

I have a terrible memory because I'm not interested in the past. It's done, it's done.

A star may guarantee business, but the tradeoff is a very short run.

I was there when the quote-unquote golden age of musical theater was flourishing. I met everybody who worked in theater or was famous in theater from the '40s on.

Criticism is valuable... and self-congratulatory experiences are not.

It's a terrible shame if you're born the brightest guy in your class. If you're not, then you have to hustle-and that's good.

I'm always glad to see somebody rethink something rather than reproduce something I did.

We've got to find a way to protect the process of making musical theater.

Peace is when we look upon the world together.

I stand fearlessly for small dogs, the American Flag, motherhood and the Bible. That's why people love me.

He (man) is both dust of earth and breath of God.

More often than not, real life is so rich, complex and unpredictable that it would seem completely implausible in the pages of a novel.

Poetry is a mystic, sensuous mathematics of fire, smoke-stacks, waffles, pansies, people, and purple sunsets.

The first official statements of President Asif Ali Zardari's new government have been firm and robust. Pakistan is obviously a renewed democracy.

Most people, after accomplishing something, use it over and over again like a gramophone record till it cracks, forgetting that the past is just the stuff with which to make more future.

I'm a novelist, so I can't write about ideas unless they're attached to people.

The spirit of envy can destroy; it can never build.

People think I'm nuts.