I’m convinced that her obsession with Jesus was far more romantic than spiritual. I think she was actually attracted to him. I sincerely thought that one day while out on a grocery run, she would...

When I’m directing, I’m pretty much not writing, but when I’m not directing I am writing a lot. It’s strange: people have asked me what my schedule is and what is my process like, and...

I was born in Chicago, then I spent most of my youth in Joliet, Illinois which is about thirty minutes south, and I went to a military academy for high school in Wisconsin. Then I...

I suffer from and enjoy an incredibly vivid dream life. A lot of times there is a sort of narrative, and other times they are just funhouses of non-linear imagery and other scary stuff.

On top of everything else, Boobie’s got the clap.

When you’re making under-million-dollar films, it becomes so much about actors’ availability. When you’re using big actors for small films, you’re in second or third position to the big monoliths.

Some of the greatest works of theater, from Chekov’s work to modern playwrights’, consist of just a few people in a room with no one leaving.

There was a kind of physical anarchy that dominated most of my younger life. I was always too skinny, not hairy enough, my voice jumped around. It was a thing that drove me away from...

That guy doesn’t try hard enough, Steve,” he said. I felt weirdly ashamed when he said that. So much so that I went into his room and urinated on his bed.

I don’t mind him not talking so much, because you can hear his voice in your heart; the same way you can hear a song in your head even if there isn’t a radio playing;...

When I work in the theater, you know you’ll get this almost devotional, religious experience where you’re breaking bread with everyone every day.

I don’t see a lot of movies that portray the East Village as well as I think they can.

No one answered. You could hear the light buzzing over us. I love that sound. It means school isn’t working, that the teachers are losing the battle.

between the wolf and the dog” because the sky is so deep blue and spooky or whatever that you can’t tell what’s what. Is that a wolf on that hill or a dog? A man...

I hate the idea of sheltering kids from challenging books. It’s just another form of conservative fear that promotes ignorance more than anything else.

I like to write about teenagers because it’s such an uncertain and dramatic time.

Love,JamieP.S. I can’t believe you’re dying. Please don’t die.

One of the tricks to writing great plays is to get people in a room together and not let them leave. You want the tension to escalate. Keeping them there is the hardest part, so...

When you’re poor, you don’t want anyone to know you’re poor.

And then again, maybe it was some weird noise in my brother’s head, some little digital murmur he never told anyone about. I’ve heard about that – how you wake up one day and there’s...

When I came to New York, I was really awkward. I went to military academy for high school, so I didn’t have the socialization that most kids do. When I got here, I was five...

I have to be entertained by what I’m writing, so a lot of my stuff has a goofiness or scatological quality. If these characters can entertain me, then I feel like I can deal with...

Fifteen years ago I killed my sister.

Film directing has perfected my theater directing. I think when I first started directing, a lot of my stuff was very lateral; I was afraid to have the actors’ backs turned away, afraid to put...

I just love working with actors, and I love working with writers, working with designers. I feel that I am just a storyteller, and whether I am wearing the director hat or the playwright hat,...

I pictured love as a big hairy giant with a dead fish in his mouth. Grizzly bear claws and his heart half out of his chest cause it’s too big and the lungs have to...

I had a sort of bad experiences as a playwright early on, when directors were putting in huge concepts that I didn’t intend, or they were stylizing something that was compromising the play, so I...

I was a jock in college and high school, but I didn’t hang out with the jocks. I was sort of a nerd who didn’t look like a nerd. I never really fit into any...

I think there is a complicated side effect to overcoming evil in that we are forever changed by it. I think after we ingest some of the cruelty of the world, it takes years off...

I have never successfully written in the third person. If there’s a rhythm or a musicality that interests me, I become obsessed with the character, and I just have this need to spend time with...

I’m pretty obsessive-compulsive, and I’m very fast. I tend to not write for a long period of time until I can’t not write, and then I write first drafts in gallops. I won’t eat right....

I would hope that the staffs at juvenile detention centers and reform schools are carefully chosen so that there is a community of support and hope.

I love plays that have musical moments. I’m not a big fan of musicals per se, but I love straight plays that have musical edges to them. I don’t know if I will ever be...

The biggest audience for Off Broadway is mostly coming in on a train – either Upper East Siders or Metro-North. I go to the theater, and everyone around me is over 50. How interested will...

My work is always more emotional than I am. My characters say things to each other that I get accused of not being able to say to my girlfriend.

I saw ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ because my brother was in it. It was a watershed experience. It was theatrical and scary, and New York functioned like a character. John Guare became a hero for...