Horton Foote

My first memory was of stories about the past - a past that, according to the storytellers, was superior in every way to the life then being lived. It didn't take me long, however, to understand that the present was all we had, for the past was gone, and nothing could be done about it.

I often write about nonreligious people, and I try to find situations where their sense of humanity is restored or discovered. I think you can be a good person in many ways. And I think you often have to be careful that prayer can seem superficial, because it's a very complicated thing to love your neighbor as yourself.

I have enormous respect for the human being because they're asked to take on a lot. And I don't think there's any easy solution. But I think the journey is what you have to finally be satisfied with, but not be afraid of the lessons one has to learn... it ends up as grace. And you grow; you find a way to continue.

I've redone plays of mine and made changes. A play is a living thing, and I'd never say I wouldn't rewrite years later. Tennessee Williams did that all the time, and it's distressing, because I'd like the play to be out there in its finished form.

I've lived long enough to know things go in and out of fashion, and things not well received now can be totally reversed years later.

A lot of writing is thinking.

I'm a social writer in the sense that I want to record, but not in the sense of trying to change people's minds.

Early on, I said to myself that I would like to write a kind of moral and spiritual history of a place. It sounds a little pretentious, I know. But that's really what I set for myself.

I so earnestly believe that prayer can be helpful and guide you and protect you and inspire you. I mean, I'm in awe.

A writer has an inescapable voice. I think it's inherent in the nature, and I think that we don't control it anymore than we control what we want to write about.

I believe very deeply in the human spirit, and I have a sense of awe about it. I look around and ask, 'What makes the difference? What is it?' I've known people the world has thrown everything at - to discourage them, to kill them, to break their spirit. And yet something about them retains a dignity. They face life and they don't ask quarters.