I'm a schizophrenic writer.

I was really interested in the way in which poverty and economic stagnation were transforming and corrupting the American narrative.

The essence of creativity is to look beyond where you can actually see. I don't want to dwell in same place too long.

My interest in theatre and storytelling began in my mother's kitchen. It was a meeting place for my mother's large circle of friends.

When you're fighting for an increasingly smaller portion of the pie, you turn against each other; you create reasons to hate each other.

I try to be led by my curiosity.

There was no way I was going to write about Africa and not include the triumphant continuity of life that had also been part of my experience there. It's not just war and famine all the time.

I like to go into a space, listen, absorb, and then interpret.

Women are standing up and leaning forward and asserting their power.

The people sometimes who are closest to us are the ones who bear the brunt of our frustration.

I see procrastination and research as part of my artistic process.

For me, playwriting is sharing my experiences, telling my stories.

I find my characters and stories in many varied places; sometimes they pop out of newspaper articles, obscure historical texts, lively dinner party conversations and some even crawl out of the dusty remote recesses of my imagination.

'Ruined' was a play which was somewhat of an anomaly in that I did not take a commission until it was finished because I really wanted to explore the subject matter unencumbered. Otherwise, I felt as though I'd have the voice of dramaturges and literary managers saying, 'This is great, but we'll never be able to produce it.'

'Intimate Apparel' is a lyrical meditation on one woman's loneliness and desire. 'Fabulation' is a very fast-paced play of the MTV generation.

Replace judgment with curiosity.

We have a double agenda of trying to deliver something exciting that people will talk about and will brighten their day and will amaze people and make us proud to have created an object of beauty. And on the other hand being true to the story.

I never want to feel more than the viewers. I'm not trying to be an automaton. It's like when you see people laughing on camera, and you don't find it funny as a viewer - it's an offputting experience.

I don't go around saturated in guilt or anything like that. I do worry about things quite a lot, but I don't feel as though I am a bad person.

As much as the glasses, it's the Englishness and the gangliness. The apparent lack of muscularity... they indicate I'm not a macho man.

I didn't think, 'I'd really like to work in TV; maybe I could carve out a niche where I talk to people who are somehow involved in marginal or difficult lifestyles... ' It was something I gravitated to very naturally as a subject area, almost instinctively, and somehow turned into a TV career without meaning to.

The many ways of getting content for free have slashed the profits of the professionals in their respective fields.

There's always a negotiation that goes on to persuade people we are coming to the subject with an open mind but without surrendering too many pawns. We don't want to misrepresent the fact that we will draw our own conclusions.

Big game hunters and the hunting industry in South Africa know a lot of people regard what they do as terrible, and the media have tended not to do them any favours. So it was an uphill struggle to win trust from the people and to get into the world.