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" The idea that public safety, the safety of the innocent, is an absolute which trumps every other consideration, is tacitly abandoned in the way we live. "

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" The whole thing about writing a play is that it's all about controlling the flow of information traveling from the stage to the audience. It's a stream of information, but you've got your hand on the tap, and you control in which order the audience receives it and with what emphasis, and how you hold it all together. "

" I think probably I've been influenced by Chekhov and Walt Disney, if you see what I mean. "

" The thing about talking about human rights is that when one bears in mind the sharp end of it, one does not want to worry too much about semantics. "

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

" I don't draw on my inner life in my work. "

" Theatre probably originated without texts, but by the time we get to the classical Greek period, theatre has become text-based. "

" It's really hard to talk about writing, and I'm usually conscious if I'm misleading people or misleading the questioner, because the problem with writing is the next line. "

" Theatre is a series of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster. "

" Very often in Chekhov, where he exhibits a little bit of human behavior that you recognize as true, you give a little laugh. It's like a reflex. "

" I don't think Stoppardian has a precise definition. "

" That I have the right to express myself freely at all times in all circumstances entails the idea that free speech is a 'basic human right' possessed by each individual, and, as such, trumps the interests of the society or group, including my neighbour. "

" Honesty is seldom ingratiating and often discomfiting. "

" I'm aware of my old plays and occasionally think about them, but I'm much more anxious about finding the next play. "

" James Joyce - an essentially private man who wished his total indifference to public notice to be universally recognized. "

" For a long time I managed to think two things simultaneously, that I am actually a good playwright, and that the next time I write a play I will be revealed as someone who is no good at all. "

" The possibilities are infinite with new writing; every time you open a new script, there's no limit to what it might contain. "

" It is no light matter to put in jeopardy a single life when it is the very singularity of each life which underpins the idea of a just society. "

" 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 don't do interviews under false pretenses. "

" I take every possible side. "

" I never had any frustration about writing uncredited. I always felt that the satisfaction of doing it was in the doing of it, really, and getting recognised by the small number of people that know what you did. "

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

" The truth of the matter is that I used to be much more - as it were - shy. Now I don't care! "

" I'm a conservative kind of person. I don't think rightwing is quite the same thing. But I acknowledge my conservatism of temperament. "

" In Chekhov, everything blends into its opposite, just fractionally, and this is sort of unsettling. And that's why you end up 100 years later asking, 'Is that moment tragic or comic?' "

" With plays that require any kind of reading program, I'm reading for a couple of years before using the material. "

" 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. "

" After all these years, I definitely associate having a pen in my hand with having an ashtray just out of eye line. "

" I feel that when I began writing, I had a need to know more about the play before I got into it. I think that's the way I was thinking. But my actual experience is that the best way to find out what the structure is, is by writing the play out laterally. You just have got to be brave enough to start without knowing where you are going. "

" When I was 20, the idea of having a play on anywhere was just beyond my dreams. "