Richard Greenberg

When we watch a play under the standard circumstances, we've lost volition and time is passing. A still play feels like an…

— Richard Greenberg

I want to be a playwright the way people are bank tellers. I want to keep doing it and have it go…

— Richard Greenberg

I don't write a play from beginning to end. I don't write an outline. I write scenes and moments as they occur…

— Richard Greenberg

I came to New York, and it was fascinating and intimidating and yielding, and all the stuff it's supposed to be. But…

— Richard Greenberg

I'm always amazed by those people who get up at 5 and write till 8 and then eat a peach and walk…

— Richard Greenberg

I do think the past changes at a slower rate. It sits a little more still for its portrait.

— Richard Greenberg

I had a plot connection that nobody understood for this fourth character, and decided, Oh, nobody gets it, that's all. I'll write…

— Richard Greenberg

The idea of a rupture between acts occurs in a number of my plays.

— Richard Greenberg

I'm sort of anti-Aristotelian. I want to get an entire life onstage while conveying a sense of how time feels, how unstoppable…

— Richard Greenberg

It seems that the hurdle you have to jump over is everyone's informed opinion. When you're a young playwright, you're probably too…

— Richard Greenberg

I think I can be an intimidating energy in the room. I think I come in with an aura of wanting results…

— Richard Greenberg

My mother wanted me to be a writer. But she was a child of the Depression and never understood that she wasn't…

— Richard Greenberg

But you don't have your druthers in life, do you?

— Richard Greenberg

A play gets on Broadway by fluke. And you don't even start out with that ambition. When I do a play, the…

— Richard Greenberg

You do think, if you have your druthers, 'I want to sort of be, not anonymous, but unknown'. But you don't have…

— Richard Greenberg

People talk about alienation in the city. Diners are a place where you feel comfortable, an extension of your house.

— Richard Greenberg

Frankly, seeing my plays with an audience is something I do with gritted teeth; I find the experience very difficult. I love…

— Richard Greenberg

I started in the era when Hollywood reveled in being the most cost-inefficient industry on the planet. They used to commission a…

— Richard Greenberg

“You know, the thing is with people who never talk, the thing is you always suppose they're harbouring some enormous secret. But,…

— Richard Greenberg

I like the Mets. I'm interested in the Mets.

— Richard Greenberg

My usual route is, I do a play at South Coast Rep, then there's time between and I revise it, and then…

— Richard Greenberg

The ocean is interacting with the surface. There is a possible biosphere that extends from way below the surface to just above…

— Richard Greenberg

For some reason, 1968 is a touchstone year for me. I think it was the first year I felt fully conscious.

— Richard Greenberg

When you're writing plays, it's possible to believe you don't have any real world skill. When you're adapting, it is really all…

— Richard Greenberg

“See it? Oh, I have no interest in seeing it. Seeing it might get in the way of my opinion.”

— Richard Greenberg