I usually think about a play anywhere from six months to a year and a half before I sit down to write it out.

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

There is a light that shines in the darkness, which is only visible there.

Ningauble shrugged. You're a hero. You should know.

An artist who makes pictures that look good but express nothing is like a writer whose words sound good but have no meaning.

He wanted to know what assurance we could give the American people that we aren't getting the tar licked out of us by the North Korean army. It has never happened to us. It won't happen this time.

What about your mind, does it shine?

I view my strongest competition as myself. You're always trying to top yourself, rather than worrying about what other people are doing.

If the winds of fortune are temporarily blowing against you, remember that you can harness them and make them carry you toward your definite purpose, through the use of your imagination.

Feel free to call me by my first name: Master.

I want to live a full life - period.

If you break your knee, you have therapy on your knee, and it's the same for your heart.