David Henry Hwang Quotes

I really like doing puppetry; I'm not sure if it will find its way into 'Big Bang,' but it always does seem to find its way into a lot of things.

Late night is no different than making a film, really, except that it's faster, and if you do a crap one, you can do a better one tomorrow. Writing a novel and doing stand-up - that stuff is very similar.

Artistic ambition is important. And it seems it would be a great time to do some theatre, like a new extreme.

My father, George, has also affected the choices in my life regarding films. I like films that take chances or say something different or experiment. Growing up with him, I was surrounded by different artists - not just actors or film-makers but cartoonists, poets, writers.

For years, I was watching other people have so much fun playing out their version of authorship, like Louis C.K. and Larry David. As I watched them do their thing, I began to pine for the days when I had a lot less expected of me and, often, a lot more creative freedom. The courage that those guys have is always captivating to me.

To be able to write a play a man must be sensitive, imaginative, naive, gullible, passionate; he must be something of an imbecile, something of a poet, something of a liar, something of a damn fool.

When theatre works, it's like nothing else, and when it doesn't, which is often, it's excruciating. It's perhaps not so excruciating when a novel goes wrong, but there is a kind of magic that can and should happen.

There's nothing more thrilling than watching great actors say things that you wrote and bring them to life.

There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen.

These 'mistakes' occur in my books for a reason. I have an agenda: I'm secretly trying to inspire kids to create their own stories and comics, and I don't want them to feel stifled by 'perfectionism.'

If you do television, and it's great, it's the best job there is. Every week it's another opportunity to really make that work and figure out how to make it work better. I love that it's like theater too, and the audience, and it's so short, like twenty minutes... It's like a Haiku or something.

I think the same way about theatre, you go out there and you are creating a world for a moment that can actually have a real impact on people, present some kind of story that gives you something to think about when you walk away, feeling enriched - if it works out well.

I hate the actor and audience business. An author should be in among the crowd, kicking their shins or cheering them on to some mischief or merriment.

When I write a story, I have no idea what I'm doing. All I know is that I want to share something with my readers. The whole idea of writing is this place where you lose control, where you're irresponsible - it's a very liberating place.

The great liberty of the fictional writer is to let the imagination out of the traces and see it gallop off over the horizon.

I started improvising the Cliff character, based on someone I grew up with.

A good novel doesn't just transcend the boundaries of its target market - it knows nothing about target markets.

Characters don't belong to anyone, not even the person who plays them.

My instinct is to absolutely recoil when talking about writing in a mechanistic way. Nothing could be dumber than writing a film or TV script based on prescriptions, on other peoples' ideas of what character should be.

I loved the world of imagination.

I try and make little stories. Whether it's with a pencil or with bits of records, it's really the same thing.

If I'm serious, yes, I'd like to have done what Shakespeare did... to act and write. You learn so much from acting. One of our great writers, Alan Bennett, does both supremely well. When I write a story, I tend to speak it aloud as I'm writing it.

I have so many themes I want to explore, so many questions I'd like to raise and develop, and hopefully, I'll get to do just that.

Acting is an imaginative leap, really, isn't it? And imaginations prosper in different circumstances.

Because I've lived a risky and unconventional life, I don't often struggle for subjects to write about.