The responsibility of the writer is to be a sort of demonic social critic -- to present the world and people in it as he sees it and say, "Do you like it? If you don't like it, change it.

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

Mindfulness removes the emotional fogs of negative thoughts with the light of awareness.

What matters in relationship isn't how you see each other, but whether you see each other.

I feel very, very proud that so many people have copied me

Secular humanists can sit around and talk about their love of humanity, but it doesn't stack up against a two-millennium-old funeral high mass.

I like projects in which I can really act and not be me all the time.

For me, when I'm coming up to a place where I have to make somebody up, it's almost like driving and taking your hands off the wheel.

Howard Dean announced today he will campaign in seven states. The states are Rage, Frenzy, Fury, Rath, Fever, Agitation, and Delirium. Yeeeeaaaah!

I was eleven and I wanted to play it because it was in my blood. It was a feeling I couldn't deny

The dog pranced delightedly around his feet as if he'd been gone to another planet instead of merely underneath a car.

True beauty is knowing who you are and what you want and never apologizing for it.