Lillian Hellman

Nothing, of course, begins at the time you think it did.

Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth. 

Failure in the theater is more dramatic and uglier than any other form of writing. It costs so much, you feel so guilty.

If you believe, as the Greeks did, that man is at the mercy of the gods, then you write tragedy. The end is inevitable from the beginning. But if you believe that man can solve his own problems and is at nobody's mercy, then you will probably write melodrama.