I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, really in suburbia, so my mother was in community theatre plays.

But here's the thing: what you do as a screenwriter is you sell your copyright. As a novelist, as a poet, as a playwright, you maintain your copyright.

The next thing I wrote was in a writing class at night school. It was about a poor woman who worked at a dime store and who was all alone for Christmas in Laurel, Mississippi.

Somehow I got to be one of five or six actors that the directors would use as guinea pigs at this directing colloquium, where people pay to listen to and watch the directors direct.

It's really interesting that whenever you do something that is so out of character, like having an emotional outburst, that you don't get in trouble.

My first few plays took place in the South and even The Lucky Spot was in the thirties but in Louisiana.

In movement class, you had to lie on the floor and get your alignment in to pass the class.

That's what I like about [smoking] . . . taking a drag off of death, Mmm! Gives me a sense of controlling my own destiny. What power! What exhilaration! Want a drag?

It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.

What I loved about the acting class was that you got to think all day long about a person that wasn't you, and figure out why they were sad and what they wanted, what they dreamed.

I find it fascinating to think about what the world is going to be like when people won't talk anymore.

Soul-to-soul contact sweeps through, like a tsunami, leaving in its wake just this: unconditional surrender and overwhelming gentleness.

Someone that you have deprived of everything is no longer in your power. He is once again entirely free.

Books must follow sciences, and not sciences b

Why would God provide heaven on earth when he's planned the real thing for you in eternity?

I really was about to pass out during my entire wedding. I just didn't know if I could marry anybody.

You're 28, why are you going to goth clubs? Do what I do, sit at home & wait to die. You don't have to kill yourself, you're just waiting.

I think people don't often realize how much goes into being a male dancer. It's athletic and it's hard. It's not just men wearing tights, or wanting to be around women.

What a glorious legacy of faith, courage, and ingenuity those noble early Mormon pioneers have left for us to build upon. My admiration for them deepens the longer I live.

Irony regards every simple truth as a challenge.

The world is a mirror in which everyone sees himself reflected