Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one's own character to himself.

Writers who draw not upon the words and thoughts of others but upon their own thoughts and their own deep being will inevitably hit upon common material. The more original the work, the more imperiously recognizable it will be...

(The Language of the Night)