The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation.

I work in an old tradition that goes back to the ancient Greeks. You hold a mirror to crime to see what's happening in society. I could never write a crime story just for the sake of it because I always want to talk about certain things in society.

I've got a book of poetry by the bed one of these big collections that goes back to the Greeks and Romans.

Well love is insanity. The ancient Greeks knew that. It is the taking over of a rational and lucid mind by delusion and self-destruction. You lose yourself you have no power over yourself you can't even think straight.

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.

And regardless of the fact that in this country certainly in the arts we treat comedy as a second-class citizen I've never thought of it that way. I've always thought it to be important. The last time I looked the Greeks were holding up two masks. I've always thought of it not only as having equal value but as the craft of it being funny.

If you go back to the Greeks and Romans they talk about all three - wine food and art - as a way of enhancing life.

I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts.

The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase 'Let no one be called happy till his death' to which I would add 'Let no one till his death be called unhappy.'