It's one of the great tragedies of our contemporary life in America, that families fall apart. Almost everybody has that in common.

My dad was a kind of semiprofessional Dixieland-type drummer, and I learned the drums from him. When I was about twelve, we bought our first Ludwig drum set from a pawnshop - a marching-band bass drum, great big tom-toms, and big, deep snare drums.

There is this aura that the three-act play is the important one: it's the one that you do to win the Pulitzer. Some part of you falls for that, and then after a while, you don't fall for that.

I'm a great believer in chaos. I don't believe that you start with a formula and then you fulfill the formula. Chaos is a much better instigator, because we live in chaos - we don't live in a rigorous form.

I'm not put off so much by first-time directors if the script is great. If the script isn't there, I'm not there.

All of the great writers whom I admire have died. I guess the most recent one would be Marquez.