Read The Great Stuff, But Read The

To A Certain Extent I Imagine A Play Is Completely Finished In My Mind - In My Case, At Any Rate - Without My Knowing It, Before I Sit Down To Write.

The Ultimate Judgment Of A Work Of Art, Whether It Be A Masterpiece Or A Lesser Event, Must Be Solely In Terms Of Its Artistic Success And Not On Freudian Guesswork.

The Act Of Creation, As You Very Well Know, Is A Lonely And Private Matter And Has Nothing To Do With The Public Area... The Performance Of The Work One Creates.

You Find Very Few Critics Who Approach Their Job With A Combination Of Information And Enthusiasm And Humility That Makes For A Good Critic. But There Is Nothing Wrong With Critics As Long As People Don't Pay Any Attention To Them. I Mean, Nobody Wants To Put Them Out Of A Job And A Good Critic Is Not Necessarily A Dead Critic. It's Just That People Take What A Critic Says As A Fact Rather Than An Opinion, And You Have To Know Whether The Opinion Of The Critic Is Informed Or Uninformed, Intelligent Of Stupid -- But Most People Don't Take The Trouble.

The Act Of Writing Is An Act Of Optimism. You Would Not Take The Trouble To Do It If You Felt That It Didn't Matter.