Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm an impatient person.
I let action rise out of character, really.
I like to write. Prolific is part of who I am.
Some of my family goes back a long way in Denver.
I'm not ashamed of being American; I'm very proud.
I find a lot of input from other people very stressful.
I am curious about a lot of things. I'm perplexed and engaged.
I think we have a cultural difficulty with looking at our problems.
Generally, what I try to do is always have a money gig and an art gig.
Rarely do I try to pull a creature out of life and make it a character.
It's not my responsibility to write plays about the way the world should be.
I do believe that there are monsters out there - and that they are monsters.
Theater is a public space. It is a spectacular space. It is a gathering place.
I work hard. I like getting to the end of things. And I write my plays that way.
I write a lot because, if I don't, I start to panic, and I calm down when I write.
The movies are all about visual, and television is all about character and dialogue.
In television, what you are doing is trying to fit your voice into a particular mold.
Why is it so hard for men to identify with women as fellow travelers on this good Earth?
I have huge admiration for Jesus Christ and for his incredible compassion for all people.
Theater can be elusive and poetic, but it doesn't thrive when it doesn't reach an audience.
I go to museums. I buy art, even. You should see my house; we don't have any wall space left.
Everyone pays lip service to this whole idea of doing more new plays, and nobody ever does it.
I'm actually interested in poor behavior. I'm interested in what drives people to poor behavior.
One thing I won't do in television is a sitcom. I find that world to be so neurotic and bizarre.
So in case there was any doubt, I am here to report that having a play on Broadway does not suck.
I make my life with New York stage actors, and I love them. They're the best actors on planet earth.
It's so funny, I'm always stealing from Moliere, and nobody ever notices. I steal from him willy-nilly.
The ridiculous way that workplace politics are conducted completely gets in the way of excellence in America.
Why is being a female having an agenda any more than being a misogynist - which David Mamet most certainly is?
New York was the Promised Land growing up. Writers were gods! The great gods of American culture... I thought.
There are so many people from many different classes and ways of life who converge in one space to make a musical.
I seem to be constantly confronted by theater professionals who are more or less annoyed by the prospect of structure.
I have tremendous affection for New York and my life, but I'm a satirist at heart. And it's easy to satirize New York.
Sometimes I feel that my job on earth is to put Julie White through horrible things, watch her writhe and then recover.
I have always worked consistently, even in small ways and even in smaller theaters where I'll do One Acts or something.
I had such a good experience doing 'The Understudy' with the Roundabout, and people were really enthusiastic about the work.
There are times when I wonder how I ever thought that I could dramatize the death of a national discussion as a family comedy.
When people tell me I'm a prolific writer, it's a nice thing to say. But I think to myself, 'Yeah, but I don't do anything else.'
I would rather work in the theater than anywhere else, and it does seem to be a place where stories can and should be told purely.
Heath Ledger's recent death, like that of River Phoenix, was handled with great care by the press. Anna Nicole Smith's not so much.
Watching people toss all caution to the wind, who are ready to put their lives on the line for a dream, is something that is accessible.
When I go to Ohio to visit relatives on holidays, I am often astonished by the level of casual dismissal offered up by way of discussion.
I have spent my whole life working in the theater, and most of the people I know have done the same. And we are pretty interesting people.
I think it's straight men who are oblivious to goodness or badness to dates. That's probably unfair. Maybe they just don't complain as much.
Art is great. At its best, it engages the intellect and challenges the spirit; it connects us across history and reminds us of our humanity.
I have admiration for people who can do it well - the guys who wrote 'Cheers' and 'Frasier.' They created sort of a blissful comedic universe.
A lot of times, I think people feel that new plays are suspect, and actually, I don't know where that came from. I completely disagree with it!
Moliere and Arthur Miller affected me at a very young age. In adulthood, I became overwhelmed by Chekhov. Those are my big theatrical influences.
We need theatre that is contemporary, lively and relevant, and the only way to do that is to take care of our playwrights and produce their plays.
I sincerely believe that for the New York theatre to remain relevant, all our major producing institutions should be presenting new American plays.