Nevertheless, one learned very early that books had to be respected; they were all putative Bibles and to some small degree had a share in holiness.

I think the job of the artist is to remind people of what they have chosen to forget.

Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.

We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!

I speak my own sins; I cannot judge another. I have no tongue for it.

Well, all the plays that I was trying to write were plays that would grab an audience by the throat and not release them, rather than presenting an emotion which you could observe and walk away from.

The concentration camp is the final expression of human separateness and its ultimate consequence. It is organized abandonment.

An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.

A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.

The structure of a play is always the story of how the birds came home to roost.

Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.

To err is human, but to err on the side of compassion is humane.

Be gentle and humble in heart.

People shout out for songs and I don't even remember writing them.

Typical! I break my neck trying to get here, and I find you peacefully tidying up!

There's nothing better for a comedian than adversity.

I'm a bit of a lefty. I like the idea of art and music collectives.

Poetry is the most mistaught subject in any school because we teach poetry by form and not by content.

You must not lie about trilobites, nor yet about time.

My father is schizophrenia, but he's good people.

Capitalism makes people unequally rich. Communism makes people equally poor.