Quote

The essence of a tragedy, or even of a serious play, is the spiritual awakening, or regeneration, of the hero.

Epic poetry exhibits life in some great symbolic attitude. It cannot strictly be said to symbolize life itself, but always some manner of life.

When the drama attains a characterization which makes the play a revelation of human conduct and a dialogue which characterizes yet pleases for itself, we reach dramatic literature.

The natural milieu I inhabit is more in epic storytelling.

I'm a storyteller: the crux of the matter is to reach beauty, poetry; it doesn't matter if that is comedy or tragedy. They're the same if you reach the beauty.

Any long work in which poetry is persistent, be it epic or drama or narrative, is really a succession of separate poetic experiences governed into a related whole by an energy distinct from that which evoked them.

Any film is about heroism: the triumph of good over evil. If you look back at my films, you will see that as a recurring theme.

Epic stories, especially 'quest narratives' like 'The Iliad' and 'The Odyssey,' are brilliant structures for storytelling. The quest lends itself to episodic storytelling.

One of the attractions of translating 'Heroes' is that it's not the kind of play that I write. If it had been, I probably wouldn't have wanted to translate it. There are no one-liners. It's much more a truthful comedy than a play of dazzling wit.

The fiction I'm most interested in has lines of reference to the real world.