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

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.

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.

That was always my inclination, to start on a new play before the other one gets done, because at least you'll have something to go back to if that play gets trashed.

Nobody special had come around to replace Duane, and she was moping, going to bed alone every night with a box of Velveeta and a fork.

It's sometimes easier to reject strong evidence than to admit that we've been wrong, this is information about ourselves worth having.

My parents had a difficult divorce.

We are destined not to go back to the level of animals that we've come from but to return to being by going beyond thinking.

call out if you need a hand. if she looks like she's going to have you, i'll sneak up behind her and whach her on the head with a stiff rabbit

Tiny Cooper is splayed out across the thin carpet, using his backpack as a pillow. He’s wearing skinny jeans, which look very much like denim sausage casings.

The whole point of being an actor is to get satisfaction out of a role -- unless you're just vain about celebrity. You're always looking for the one thing that will surprise you.

Significance is inherent in the human body.

People don't always do what they say they're going to do.

The Godfather has, maybe, one good scene.