Plays are so much more special if they've never ever had a production, but I think you can really work on a play and make it better with each production.

But here's the thing: what you do as a screenwriter is you sell your copyright. As a novelist, as a poet, as a playwright, you maintain your copyright.

The next thing I wrote was in a writing class at night school. It was about a poor woman who worked at a dime store and who was all alone for Christmas in Laurel, Mississippi.

Somehow I got to be one of five or six actors that the directors would use as guinea pigs at this directing colloquium, where people pay to listen to and watch the directors direct.

It's really interesting that whenever you do something that is so out of character, like having an emotional outburst, that you don't get in trouble.

My first few plays took place in the South and even The Lucky Spot was in the thirties but in Louisiana.

In movement class, you had to lie on the floor and get your alignment in to pass the class.

That's what I like about [smoking] . . . taking a drag off of death, Mmm! Gives me a sense of controlling my own destiny. What power! What exhilaration! Want a drag?

It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.

What I loved about the acting class was that you got to think all day long about a person that wasn't you, and figure out why they were sad and what they wanted, what they dreamed.

I find it fascinating to think about what the world is going to be like when people won't talk anymore.

Discipline leads us to desire, which matures into delight.

And he looked lonely enough that she said, 'If you like, you could be my friend'.

Love was not the point and pity was a poor man's pride.

There have been periods where the folks who were already here suddenly say, 'Well, I don't want those folks,' even though the only people who have the right to say that are some Native Americans.

If you want to climb it badly enough, you will. So... why bother ?

To give oneself is the only way of becoming oneself.

When one life changes, many lives are changed.

I make playlists on my iPod like nobody's business!

At age 31, in 1981, I was voted the best player in basketball, and the most valuable player in the league.

Only the clever men can be flexible; others are condemned to remain as rigid!