I'm kind of perverse in that I think pessimism is helpful. My pessimism is my own kind of patriotism. My dissent..

Sometimes my family thinks I've made my childhood a bit more Dickensian than it was, and it probably wasn't all that bad. But I was uncomfortable as ….

A certain giving up of control is good for the soul..

I like Shakespeare, but I never know what the hell is going on..

You know, people see [August: Osage County], and I tell them that it's based on my family, and they assume that I came from some kind of horrible, hy….

What they frequently want to do with a movie is, they want to cut out the valleys and just show the peaks. And valleys are important; the valleys mak….

We're all just people, some of us accidentally connected by genetics, a random selection of cells. Nothing more..

After the success of 'August,' there were people saying I should change my life. And maybe I should have bought a yacht and traveled the world instea….

I don't know what it says about me that I have a greater affinity with the damaged. Probably nothing good..

I never know what the hell I'm writing about, I never know what the next thing I'm writing about is, I never have a plan..

Thank God we can't tell the future. We'd never get out of bed..

The window shades have all been removed. Nighttime is now free to encroach..

Well, one of the things we're supposed to be able to do as playwrights is write from a place of empathy, get into another character's shoes and exper….

You get to know a character that you play on-stage in a pretty profound way over a length of time. I don't want to sound highfalutin and say you beco….

If you're not entertaining, what the hell's the point?.

All women need makeup. Don't let anybody tell you different. The only woman who was pretty enough to go without makeup was Elizabeth Taylor and she w….

My last refuge, my books: simple pleasures, like finding wild onions by the side of a road, or requited love..

I said to my wife just the other day, I was actually taking some time to consider all the blessings in my life and that things are really good. I sai….

Women are beautiful when they're young, and not after. Men can still preserve their sex appeal well into old age.... Some men can maintain, if they e….

I don't think I'd give advice. That never pays off. That's always a bad idea. If they follow your advice and it doesn't work out, or if they don't fo….

I mean there’s a certain finality about a movie, when it’s done it’s done – that raised eyebrow in that moment will always be that raised eyebrow. Wh….