It is Ireland's sacred duty to send over, every few years, a playwright to save the English theater from inarticulate glumness.

A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car.

A neurosis is a secret that you don’t know you are keeping.

Show me a congenital eavesdropper with the instincts of a Peeping Tom and I will show you the making of a dramatist.

Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself; a comprehensible work is the product of a journalist. We need works that are strong, straight, precise, and forever beyond understanding.

The buttocks are the most aesthetically pleasing part of the body because they are non-functional.

A good drama critic is one who perceives what is happening in the theatre of his time. A great drama critic also perceives what is not happening.

Pearl is a disease of oysters. Levant is a disease of Hollywood.

No theater could sanely flourish until there was an umbilical connection between what was happening on the stage and what was happening in the world.

All of life is more or less what the French would call s'imposer, to be able to create one's own terms for what one does.

I do not see the E.E.C. [European Economic Community] as a great love affair. It's more like nine middle aged couples with failing marriages meeting at a Brussels hotel for a group grope.

My discontent has accumulated over the past months, searching for a leak in the dam I’ve constructed to separate my true feelings from the situation closing in around me.

I don't understand a way to work other than bold-facedly running towards failure.

I guess it's the fear of failure and not knowing how the films are going to do that just drives us to work really hard to make them the best they can possibly be.

I remember one guy saying, "You're the only human out of all of them," and feeling a little concerned that somehow that meant I wasn't as funny.

Real love doesn't seek to acquire. It gives itself away. Its very nature is that of surrender, service, and generosity.

The man who doctors himself with the aid of medical books, runs the risk of dying of a typographical error.

You've got to be an observer. And you've got to take time to listen to people, talk, to watch what they do.

It is a mistake to speak of a bad choice in love, since, as soon as a choice exists, it can only be bad.

Each time a swarm of worries invades your mind, refuse to be affected; wait calmly, while seeking the remedy. Spray the worries with the powerful chemical of your peace.

There is no one best way for parents to become the parents they want to be just as there is no one best way for a child to grow into a contented and contributing member of society.