John Guare

“We live in a world where amnesia is the most wished-for state. When did history become a bad word?”

“Plays have a celebratory nature that no other form has. Theater always meant celebration, a birthday, a reward for good grades. I felt at home in a theater. I loved being part of an audience. All the rules - the audience has to see the play on a certain date at a certain time in a certain place in a certain seat.”

“I think of the New York City Ballet as the Yankees without George Steinbrenner.”

“Does any art have a practical value? People love to talk about how expensive a painting is. That's the only way we can talk about paintings in this century.”

“I like to ground plays in reality so they can jump higher. So we can account for the trampoline, so we can account for the leap.”

“I ushered at the Shubert in New Haven during graduate school when plays en route to Broadway still went out of town to try out. I worked backstage at summer stock doing jobs from garbage man to strapping on Herbert Marshall's wooden leg to fixing Gloria Swanson's broken plumbing in her dressing room with her yelling at me as I worked the plunger.”