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" Because theatre is a story-telling art form, we feel entitled to assume that the playwright got there before we got there. "

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" When Auden said his poetry didn't save one Jew from the gas chamber, he'd said it all. "

" I've got no interest in educating or instructing people. "

" Well I believe in the desirability of an optimal society. "

" I've never really worked out this thought, and I don't know if I'm really conscious of it, but I can see there's an attraction about writing about a period that's over and isn't going to change colour while you look at it. "

" When I was younger, I could do something useful just by being free for half a day, but now I need five days to get the world I've left out of my head and ten days or a fortnight not talking to anyone to hold what I need to hold inside my head. "

" I wish I could remember how to write a play. I can't remember how they happened. "

" I can't remember what my first script was. "

" All of my scripts are based on other people's novels. Generally, I consider myself as one who writes for theatre. I do not see film work as a continuation of writing for theatre. It is more of an interruption of the writing process. "

" I don't believe there is something called 'film' and something called 'theater,' and that words belong in the theater. Some rather bad films have few words in them; some good films have a lot of words in them. "

" Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them. "

Responsibilities

" I think I give the impression of being a romantic, and I think inside I'm quite severe. But some might say they had the opposite impression of me. "

" I write plays because writing dialogue is the only respectable way of contradicting yourself. I put a position, rebut it, refute the rebuttal, and rebut the refutation. "

" I'm not like some other writers: I have no actual urgent need or desire to add to what's written. You write it; if you're lucky, it's performed, and that's the end of the whole thing. "

" A free press needs to be a respected press. "

" My desk faces the water, and I'm perfectly happy sitting there. I'm never lonely. "

" It is not hard to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall it's a painting, and if you can walk around it it's a sculpture. "

" When you try to grasp the way the Western world is going, you see that we are on a ratchet towards a surveillance state, which is coming to include the whole population in its surveillance. This is our reward for accepting the restraints on the way we live now. "

" A great production of a black comedy is better than a mediocre production of a comedy of errors. "

" Somebody who likes to do my plays is a good director for them. "

" Possibly because I did start off as a journalist, my starting point has always been that you've got to keep an audience with you. Whatever you're doing, you always want a script to be a page-turner. It's very important never, ever, to feel above that. "

" The fact is, I loved being English. I was very happy to be turned into an English schoolboy. "

" I'm good at being funny. "

" I like trying to create a spark through a collaboration between me and the audience. "

" The way 'star' used to be reserved for a small number of people, and when the star category became so vast, they came up with 'superstar,' and then they came up with 'megastar.' "

" One of the attractions of translating 'Heroes' is that it's not the kind of play that I write. If it had been, I probably wouldn't have wanted to translate it. There are no one-liners. It's much more a truthful comedy than a play of dazzling wit. "

" I'm not one of those writers who insist they don't read reviews and don't care much about them. I do read them, and I do care about them, and they're not always what you want them to be in an ideal world. "

" In 2005, I got an email from Belarus Free Theatre. They were emailing playwrights in America and England announcing their existence and saying they would like support from us. I wrote back and asked if they wanted us to visit. They said, 'Yes, we'd love that.' "

" I write out of my intellectual experience. "