The satirist isn't just looking at things ironically but militantly - he wants to change them, and intends to have an effect on the world.

Only in art will the lion lie down with the lamb, and the rose grow without thorn.

Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful.

Probably human cruelty is fixed and eternal. Only styles change.

My life looked good on paper - where, in fact, almost all of it was being lived.

When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable

Closure is a greasy little word which, moreover, describes a nonexistent condition. The truth, Venus, is that nobody gets over anything.

Perhaps there are other bits of my life that would take on content, take on shadow, if only I read more and thought less about money.

When you’ve lost all your play, guess what love becomes. Work. Work that gets harder every hour.

Love is blind; but it makes you see the blind man; teetering on the roadside . . .

Every 10 years you're a different person, and the really great books evolve with you as you get older. They're full of new rewards.

Women are unhappy in their marriages because they want men to be more related than most men know how to be. And men are unhappy in their marriages because their women seem so unhappy with them.

I think it's the pain and suffering that drive you to become an artist. The art itself should be the pain, sort of exorcising every demon and making you feel like you're a person that matters.

Your hatred is rooted in your fear, and your paranoia and insecurities, well they don't belong here.

You can't walk on water until you get yourself out the boat.

No emotion is the final one.

Every play is so important. It's a record of what life was like at the time you wrote that play or that book.

When you think what someone thinks & do what they do, you'll find that you'll produce a similar result.

Nothing is more beautiful than a line that brings out a form.

I belong to the 8% of the world population who calm their apprehension by drowning it in numbers.

The wise man... if he would live at peace with others, he will bear and forbear.