After all these years, I definitely associate having a pen in my hand with having an ashtray just out of eye line.

In Chekhov, everything blends into its opposite, just fractionally, and this is sort of unsettling. And that's why you end up 100 years later asking, 'Is that moment tragic or comic?'

I'm not a theoretician about playwriting, but I have a strong sense that plays have to be pitched - the scene, the line, the word - at the exact point where the audience has just the right amount of information. It's like Occam's razor.

When I think of how things could have turned out, I feel as if I've dodged, not just bullets, but 6mm shells.

If you associate enough with older people who do enjoy their lives, who are not stored away in any golden ghettos, you will gain a sense of continuity and of the possibility for a full life.

A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.