"I come from a tradition where the writer writes a play for the actors, rather than for himself, and the dialogue is made to work onstage, so it needs actors to help shape it. So you never get a play right straightaway."

"In many ways, theatre is more rewarding for a writer. I used to think it was like painting a wall - that when the play is finished, it's done - but now I realise it's more like gardening; you plant the thing, then you have to constantly tend it. You're part of a thing that's living."

"I only tend to think of the week ahead, to keep my eye on the ball and question whether a full stop is in the right place. It's easy to get distracted by the wrong things. If you start thinking of grand gestures, it's going to be a lot of hot air. You have to be logical. The theatre is a very logical place."

"Culture is something that we all share, and we are all the poorer for anyone excluded from it."

"The music industry can make you feel like a prostitute."

"I don't even know what words to use to talk about the music industry anymore. But the business has changed a lot - the methods of releasing music."

"American poetry, like American painting, is always personal with an emphasis on the individuality of the poet."

"The sadness of the incomplete, the sadness that is often Life, but should never be Art."