Art Should Never Try To

The Playwright, Along With Any Writer, Composer, Painter In This Society, Has Got To Have A Terribly Private View Of His Own Value, Of His Own Work. He's Got To Listen To His Own Voice Primarily. He's Got To Watch Out For Fads, For What Might Be Called The Critical Aesthetics.

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.

I Find That When My Plays Are Going Well, They Seem To Resemble Pieces Of Music. But If I Had To Go Into Specifics About It, I Wouldn't Be Able To. It's Merely Something That I Feel.

I Don't Set Out To Write A Play A Year. Sometimes I've Written Two Plays A Year. There Was A Period Of A Year And Half When I Only Wrote Half A Play. If It Depresses Some Critics That I Seem Prolific, Well, That's Their Problem As Much As Mine.

One Must Let The Play Happen To One; One Must Let The Mind Loose To Respond As It Will, To Receive Impressions, To Sense Rather Than Know, To Gather Rather Than Immediately Understand.