“One of the interesting things about writing a play is that when you've finished it you have to give it away.”

“Any man who undertakes to write a play is either a damn fool or a hero, I don't know which. When you write a book, you pull it out of the typewriter and that's that. When you write a play you've got to go on with the producer and the director and the actors and the rehearsals and the …”

“If you can't think of what to write, tough luck; write anyway. If you can think of lots more when you've finished the three pages, don't write it; it'll be that much easier to get going next day.”

“I have no ideas before I write a play. I have them when I have finished it … I believe that aritistic creation is spontaneous. It is for me.”

“I have always noticed that when a fellow wants to finish a play, the only way to do it is to go away to the country and leave no address.”

“The most extraordinary thing about writing is that when you've struck the right vein, tiredness goes. It must be an effort, thinking wrong.”

“After all this running away from finished things, I ran into myself as a finished thing. And I’m still running away from finished things.”

“Fantasy is totally wide open; all you really have to do is follow the rules you've set. But if you're writing about science, you have to first learn what you're writing about.”

“You've got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner. This is especially true when you begin to write, when you have not yet developed the tricks of interesting people on paper, when you have none of the technique which it takes time to learn. When, in short, you have only your emotions to sell.”

“When you've seen all of Ionesco's plays, I felt at the end, you've seen one of them.”