Quotes from Theresa Rebeck

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

When I was a staff writer on 'NYPD Blue,' it was truly my job to hear David Milch's voice for that show and to deliver episodes that embodied that voice.

I may be a slut, but I'm a slut who is growing a conscience.

Every fucking corner of everything you write is precious, if it isn't why would you write it?

They were all getting too old too fast. Alison wished that someone had warned her about this while she was in high school. People get old really fast. Take it easy and learn to forgive. She wondered if she would have known what that meant in high school.

He sounded so lonely; he always had. It was so easy for him to fall into himself; she'd always had to work so hard to get him to stay in the world. He hid in his head, and it wasn't good for him, he was always so much happier when she would coax him out of there.

Don't fall in love with the past, she thought. You don't live there. Now is when you live. "I

The past and the present kept smashing into each other in completely untenable ways.

But even though I like having sex with you, I think you're kind of a huge asshole, and I don't want to have to talk to you again.

It's so funny, I'm always stealing from Moliere, and nobody ever notices. I steal from him willy-nilly.

Denver's commitment to giving contemporary storytellers the stage is crucial to the American theater. That's something embraced by 'Smash.' We should be telling our own stories.

Honestly, the thing that I have found to be most useful over a long career, or maintaining a long career, is taking back the power at some point and self-producing.

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

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

I was born and raised in the Midwest, where people were taught that decency and integrity and community were all important values. We were democrats with a little 'd.'

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.

I'm not afraid of just cranking it out and seeing what comes out of my subconscious. Because I don't always know what I'm feeling. I do a lot of rewriting later. But that first blast feels like a spigot - like it's coming from somewhere else.

I'm not ashamed of being American; I'm very proud.

I often find it maddening to live in America, in a way that is both amusing and horrifying to me. America clings to versions of itself that are absolutely hypocritical. I can't shake my outrage at it, so I write about it.

I had such a good experience doing 'The Understudy' with the Roundabout, and people were really enthusiastic about the work.