You emerge from tragedy equipped against lies. After the musical, you're anybody's fool

I never 'say' anything in my work. I invent a world. Let others decide what is being 'said'.

We are suffocated by writers who want to enlighten us with their truths. For me, the theatre is beautiful because it is a secret, and secrets seduce us, we all want to share secrets.

Theatre should be a taxing experience: the greatest achievement of a writer is to produce a character who creates anxiety.

I don't like sympathetic characters.

I'm not interested in observed reality.

I submit all my plays to the National Theatre for rejection. To assure myself I am seeing clearly.

When I write, I am not giving a lecture, I am speculating on behavior. Sometimes this is dangerous, but it should be. As I say often, theatre is a dark place and we should keep the light out of it.

The artist who makes himself accessible is self-destructive.

I have plenty of political views and plenty of social and personal prejudices. I do not, however, value them.

A good play puts the audience through a certain ordeal.

Vivo sin vivir en mí... muero porque no muero. (I live without really being alive... I die because I am not dying.)

Maybe I was naïve to think that silence was implicit complacence, instead of a festering question. Maybe I was silly to believe that friends owed each other anything.

Everywhere man is confronted with fate, with the chance of achieving something through his own suffering.

I discovered the bleeding when he licked my hand and left a swath of blood behind, death's autograph.

As professionals we have a responsibility of providing a good show for the fans. Getting hits and home runs is what they want to see.

The paradox is the seed of truth. This germ just needs a fertile ground to flourish and bear fruit.

I thought I was the last American weirdo then I met Chris Chandler.

If bliss is to scratch an itch, what greater bliss, no itch at all? So too, the worldly, desirous, find some bliss, But greatest is the bliss with no desire

Oh, what a tangled web do parents weave, when they think that their children are naive.

There's no good answer to a question you didn't hear