Quotes from Christopher Durang

I grew up wanting to be a writer for theatre.

Since it's based on my parents, it's more emotionally close to me than some of my more surreal plays. And then I like the balance of the comic and the sad. It should play as funny, but you should care about the characters and feel sad for them.

Laughter can bring a new perspective.

I didn't have a teacher like Sister Mary Ignatius.

My father knew the charming side of my mother, and my mother thought that he was attentive and pleasant and was an architect, which was a respectable profession, but I don't think that they actually got to know one another deeply.

I need a life. I need a friend. I need a change. But nothing ever changes.

I never graduated to being an atheist. I only graduated to being an agnostic.

When my parents separated, I was very grateful.

On the one hand, I'm grateful to be hired and thrilled to be paid.

Since I also act, sometimes I get over my resentment and commit to the pitch as an acting job.

My biggest problem with organized religion is that God has been imagined as a human being with emotions. I feel if you let go of that, then it's possible to see God as a force, to connect to him or her spiritually.

If everyone took anti-depressants, Chekhov would have nothing to write about.

No, I was just thinking about Chernobyl. That's like a scream from the universe warning us, but we're not paying any attention.

Will this long presidency of George W. Bush ever be over? Living through it is starting to seem like some ghastly, upsetting novel in which the hero is the country, and the president is this disturbing, pig-headed, oblivious villain who makes things worse and worse and worse.

Anyone who wears a tiara and sequins is always going to be the winner.

And what kind of name for a town is Upper Black Eddy? Pennsylvania scares me sometimes.

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.

We didn't identify with rock stars, we identified with Mouseketeers. Annette, Darlene Gillespie, Cubby O'Brien.

There are no shared memories anymore. Now, now there's twitter and email and Facebook and cable and satellite

You just totally missed the metaphor. I could never love someone who missed the metaphor.

If everyone took antidepressants, Chekhov would have had nothing to write about.

Then in college I became obsessed with film, and wanted to be part of that.

I didn't have a teacher like Sister Mary Ignatius.

Since it's based on my parents, it's more emotionally close to me than some of my more surreal plays. And then I like the balance of the comic and the sad. It should play as funny, but you should care about the characters and feel sad for them.