Theresa Rebeck

“Why on earth is the 'New Yorker' publishing puff pieces about pretty girls who go to parties? Does the 'New Yorker' ever run photos of cute boys just because they're cute and they come from money and they go to lots of parties?”

“I think new plays are vastly more surprising and challenging and inspiring; I hear from audiences all the time that they are delighted when they see plays about the world we live in now, at this moment.”

“The myth that theater isn't for everybody is total nonsense. In the 18th and 19th centuries, everybody in America used to go to the theater all the time. The shows they went to see were big, crazy melodramas that had careening storylines and houses burning down and pretty girls in danger and comedy and death and destruction.”

“I seem to be constantly confronted by theater professionals who are more or less annoyed by the prospect of structure.”

“We were told that hard work and talent and character would get you somewhere. At school, we learned it was important to share. On Arbor Day, we all planted trees.”

“I have tremendous affection for New York and my life, but I'm a satirist at heart. And it's easy to satirize New York.”

“There are times when I wonder how I ever thought that I could dramatize the death of a national discussion as a family comedy.”

“I'm an impatient person.”

“Why is it so hard for men to identify with women as fellow travelers on this good Earth?”

“One thing I won't do in television is a sitcom. I find that world to be so neurotic and bizarre.”

“It's sort of a mystery where ideas come from.”

“I see how the Midwest distrusts the East Coast. The Midwest sees itself as morally superior. The Coast sees itself as intellectually superior. And the two are actually the same thing.”

“I find a lot of input from other people very stressful.”

“In the theater, there's an emphasis on the singular voice. You know, it's your play. And in television, there's so much institutional involvement. So you end up having to negotiate with a lot of people, and that provides a kind of wear and tear on the spirit.”

“New York was the Promised Land growing up. Writers were gods! The great gods of American culture... I thought.”

“I am curious about a lot of things. I'm perplexed and engaged.”

“I think, with most writers, their neurosis is finishing things. I have a different neurosis. I'm terribly anxious when it's not finished. Then I become really difficult to live with.”

“It's one of the central problems of American culture: telling you if you're younger, more beautiful, more famous, whatever, that then you'll be happy.”

“I actuall have to defend realism in theatre because I think TV does it badly - so corrupted by layers of bureaucrats who want to leave examination or psychology.”

“I think that because television is shot on a really fast schedule, and it gets piped into your home on a smaller screen, it's much more about character and dialogue in a lot of cases than the movies are.”