Theatre is where we explore the full range of human emotions.

Theatre is an invitation to think, feel, and reflect.

In the theatre, we are all equals, sharing a moment of truth.

Believe in yourself, even when others doubt you. You are capable of great things.

The greatest gift you can give yourself is the freedom to be who you truly are.

Authenticity is the key to living a meaningful life. Be true to yourself.

Find your passion and pursue it with all your heart. That is where true fulfillment lies.

Playwriting is a dialogue with the audience.

Drama is the mirror of life, but sometimes it shows us things we don’t want to see.

In the theatre, we create a shared reality. That’s the magic.

Writing is a kind of moral act.

The aim of a play is to make the audience confront something they’ve never thought of.

You can’t separate what’s personal from what’s public in writing.

Art isn’t a solution, but it’s a way of posing the question.

Dream big, work hard, and never give up. You have the power to create your own destiny.

Art is never about something, it’s about something happening in a moment.

The theatre should be a place of revelation.

I don’t want to tell people what to think; I want them to think.

Kindness costs nothing, but it can make a world of difference.

America is a crippled giant, England is a sick gnome.

The greatest danger of theatre is to present life as it is, without questioning it.

The best theater is the one that connects people with the rest of humanity.

You don’t get to be a playwright unless you have something to say.

Life is like a puzzle, and each experience is a piece that helps us complete the picture.

Dear Leonard. To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours.

Theater is about connection, human connection.

Every play I write comes from some kind of personal frustration, something that’s been brewing inside me.

Insofar as I’m good at directing, it’s because I’ve become a writer.

I’ve always thought that playwrights are only as good as their capacity to observe.

Don’t let the fear of failure hold you back. Take risks and embrace the challenges.

Politics is personal; personal is political.

The only way to find true peace is to learn to accept yourself and others just as they are.

No single move traps the king.

As human beings, we are all not conducting just one narrative but many narratives all at the same time.

The danger of our age is that people think they have everything figured out.

One of the best ways to know people is to observe them in times of crisis.

We are all caught in a struggle between the private and the public, the individual and the collective.

In the ’70s, terrorism was much more serious, in that many more people got killed.

We are all flawed, but it is in our flaws that our true beauty lies.

One of the depressing things in England is the total orthodoxy: the law is handed down from Downing Street.

The best theatre is the one that forces you to question your assumptions.

Trying to be a socialist and a libertarian is obviously a very difficult balancing act, which nobody has pulled off too successfully in this century.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to overcome it.

I don’t see the theater as an establishment. The National Theatre has always seemed to me a people’s theater. It was never meant to reinforce the values of the government of the day, nor does it, nor should it.

If the purpose of the stumpy little NFT theatre under Waterloo Bridge is not to acquaint young audiences with Ozu, with Ophuels, with D. W. Griffith and with Agnes Varda, then what exactly does it exist for?

Love is a choice, not just a feeling. It requires commitment and effort.

The only thing that makes a good play is if it offers an audience something they don’t already know.

The future of American film lies on television.

I have a very, very good relationship with 10 percent of the audience. The only purpose of art is intimacy. That’s the only point.

Politics is just a function of business now, just a tributary of the great entrepreneurial capitalist system.

A good play is a good play because it doesn’t let us off the hook.

You cant get a contemporary story about what is going on inside government, and how society sees itself, on American TV.

Life is too short to waste on regrets. Embrace each day as a new opportunity.

The ultimate tendency of civilization is towards barbarism.

The great mystery of adaptation is that true fidelity can only be achieved through lavish promiscuity.

I think that the best work comes when you stop worrying about being clever.

What politicians want and what creative writers want will always be profoundly different, because I’m afraid all politicians, of whatever hue, want propaganda, and writers want the truth, and they’re not compatible.

I believe in the power of words to change the world, to inspire and bring hope.

I love you, for God’s sake. I still love you. I loved you more than anyone on earth. But I’ll never trust you, after what happened. It’s what Alice said. You’ll never grow up. There is no peace in you.

Children always turn to the light.

Success is not measured by wealth or fame, but by the difference you make in other people’s lives.

It’s extraordinary how much information can be contained in silence.

I actually think love changes everything. I think it’s the only thing worth having.

Via Dolorosa is the only thing I have ever acted in my life, professionally, and Ill never act again.

The actual business of writing dialogue is not thought of as a craft.

The most important things in life are not things. They are experiences, relationships, and love.

What I am really saying is that everything I do is about the tension between what is said and what is meant.

When you get older, then you feel death not at the end of the road, but death all around you, in everything. Life is saturated with death. I feel death everywhere.

In oratory the will must predominate.

In those days, the early 1980s, TV and film were interchangeable.

I believe love opens people up.

When they speak, dead frogs fall out of their mouths.

My father always said ‘There’s no free lunch.’ My father was right. There’s no free lunch and there’s no free market. The market is rigged, the market is always rigged, and the rigging is in favour of the people who run the market. That’s what the market is. It’s a bent casino. The house always wins.

Writing plays is a way of exploring the darkness, the things you cannot explain or articulate.

The difficulty with writing is that it’s so solitary. You never know whether you’re doing it right.

Style is the art of getting yourself out of the way, not putting yourself in it.

Strength was the virtue of paganism; obedience is the virtue of Christianity.

Writing is a journey of discovery. You start from nothing and learn as you go.

Poetry is the key to the hieroglyphics of nature.

If you want to write, you’ve got to be prepared to fail and fail again.

Smiles are the language of love.

Never take advice from anyone with no investment in the outcome.

The moment you start to worry about what other people think, you start to limit yourself.

Thought is the wind and knowledge the sail.

Theatre is the art form that looks at the gap between what we say and what we do.

I suppose the real secret of Annabel’s charm is that she’s one of those people who manages to look fabulous in every situation. It’s a sort of Alice-in-Wonderland effect.

No one but a fool is always right.

Weak minds sink under prosperity as well as adversity; but strong and deep ones have two high tides.

Sudden resolutions, like the sudden rise of mercury in a barometer, indicate little else than the variability of the weather.