Maud: Young women are never happy. Betty: Mother, what a thing to say. Maud: Then when they're older they look back and see that comparatively speaking they were ecstatic.
Painting doesn't mean just describing; it's a state of spirit.
What's poetry? It's not real but maybe it's more than real. It's dreaming while you're awake.
People aren't evil and people aren't good. They live how they can one day at a time. They come out of dust they go back to dust, dusty feet, no wings, and whose fault is that?
Harry: I supposed getting married wouldn't be any worse than killing myself.
I’ll take her no mistake no mister no missed her no mist no miss no me no.
[Margaret] Thatcher had just become prime minister; there was talk about whether it was an advance to have a woman prime minister if it was someone with policies like hers: She may be a woman but she isn't a sister, she may be a sister but she isn't a comrade.
We’ve got ninety-nine per cent the same genes as any other person. We’ve got ninety per cent the same as a chimpanzee. We’ve got thirty per cent the same as a lettuce. Does that cheer you up at all? I love about the lettuce. It makes me feel I belong.
What I like about a dog it stops people getting after you, they're not going to come round in the night. But they make the place stink because I might want to stay out a few days and when I get back I might want to stay in a few days and a dog can become a tyrant to you.
Polly Findlay showed real insight and imagination in her production of my translation of Seneca's Thyestes at the Arcola. I enjoyed her use of the space and the detail of her work with the actors, and I'm looking forward to seeing what she does with Light Shining.
Paper is like Joyce Carol Oates: white.
I'd go without food if I could have a flower.
Parties are a cruel kind of fun.
How could I go on my travels without that sweet soul waiting at home for my letters?
You can't win every week.
England that little gray island in the clouds where governments don't fall overnight and children don't sell themselves in the street and my money is safe.
You make beauty and it disappears, I love that.
You're pretending this isn't your life. You think it's going to happen some other time. When you're dead you'll realise you were alive now.
Martin: Yes, I'd like to go home and do some work. I'm writing a novel about women from the women's point of view.
Maybe he should have kept quiet about if he knew they couldn't stand it. Is that what you do?
Numbers that make you uncomfortable and don't relate to oranges
There's nothing personal in it [THE SKRIKER]. I'm not ever inclined with any of the plays to say, This is about that, because plays are about the whole event that they are. . . . I was certainly wanting to write a play about damage - damage to nature and damage to people, both of which there's plenty of about. To that extent, I was writing a play about England now.
NELL. Because that's what an employer is going to have doubts about with a lady as I needn't tell you, whether she's got the guts to push through to a closing situation. They think we're too nice. They think we listen to the buyer's doubts. They think we consider his needs and his feelings.
