Quotes from Martin McDonagh

I pick and choose what I want to do at any given time, and what not to do, importantly. My agents, I won't hear about any offers or options.

I suppose I walk that line between comedy and cruelty because I think one illuminates the other. We're all cruel, aren't we? We are all extreme in one way or another at times and that's what drama, since the Greeks, has dealt with. I hope the overall view isn't just that though, or I've failed in my writing. There have to be moments when you glimpse something decent, something life-affirming even in the most twisted character. That's where the real art lies.

Right at this moment, I don't care if they kill me. I don't care. But they're not going to kill my stories. They're not going to kill my stories. They're all I've got.

I used to love you very much.

To Pussy (1981-1995)

People say you should only write what you know. But you only write what you know because you are too fucking stupid to make anything up.

Hans Christian Andersen: We co-write them. I just don't do any of the writing. I change the bits I don't like and then erase all the rest from history. I'm more like a German theatre director. Or, y'know, a German generally.

Coleman: It's always the best ones go to hell. Me, probably straight to heaven I'll go, even though I blew the head off poor dad. So long as I go confessing to it anyways. That's the good thing about being Catholic. You can shoot your dad in the head and it doesn't even matter at all.

VALENE: Father Walsh, now... COLEMAN: Father Walsh, Father Walsh... WELSH (exiting, screaming): Me name's Welsh!!!

Oh, I almost forgot to mention...I'm the good cop, he's the bad cop. - Tupolski

Oh, I almost forgot to mention... I'm the good cop, he's the bad cop! - Tupolski

You did give me treatment. You never tell me any news. Your Mrs up and died of TB the other year, and who was the last to know? I was the last to know. I wasn't told until the day she died, and you knew for weeks and weeks, with not a thought for my feelings …

Bobby You could throw the book at the cow. Billy I would rather to read the book, Bobby. Bobby It takes all kinds, as they say.

You're the one thought psychopaths were so interesting, but they're kinda tiresome after a while, don't you think?

Doctor Where's your mammy now? Johnny At home she is. (Pause.) Lying at the foot of me stairs. Doctor What's she doing lying at the foot of your stairs? Johnny Nothing. Just lying. Ah she seems happy enough. She has a pint with her. Doctor How did she get lying at the foot of your stairs? Johnny Be falling down them! How d'ya usually get lying at the foot of a fella's stairs? Doctor And you just left her there? Johnny Is it my job to go picking her up? Doctor It is!

Ah what harm? Do what you want and feck everybody else is Johnnypateenmichael's motto.

And do you want your sausages or don't you want your sausages, cos I'm aware of that sausage hissy-fit from earlier?

A church hall in semi-darkness. Bobby, Mammy (bottle in hand), Johnny, Helen, Bartley, Eileen and Kate sitting.

WELSH: I won't be. I'm leaving Leenane tonight. GIRLEEN: Leaving for where? WELSH: Anywhere. Wherever they send me. Anywhere but here. GIRLEEN: But why, Father? WELSH: Ah lots of different reasons, now, but the three slaughterings and one suicide amongst me congregation didn't help.

If I ask you something outright, or if I go with my eyes, like, "Go ahead and say something," like with my eyes, then you go ahead and say something, but if I'm in the middle of something...

GIRLEEN: Coleman. Father Welsh Walsh Welsh... WELSH: Welsh. GIRLEEN: Welsh. I know. Don't be picking me up. How is all? COLEMAN: We've just stuck our dad in the ground. GIRLEEN: Grand, grand. I met the postman on the road with a letter for Valene.

No, not 'well'! Christ no, not 'well'. 'Well'...dot dot dot...'she's'...dot dot dot...'dead'. Dot.

It isn't about being or not being dead. It's about what you leave behind.

With a stage play, they can't cut a word; you can be in rehearsals every day, you cast it, you cast the director, too; the amount of control for a playwright is almost infinite, so you have that control over the finished product.