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I said, “Clifford, what frightens me is the possibility that you will finally not write those five plays, that they will be found as notes in your files at the end. I fear there’s very little time left. For any of us. You say the date on your plane ticket east is nine months from now. Do you really…

Odets was the first man I called on when I made a trip to California. We always had dinner alone and always in his house. He would welcome me as if I was a lifeline to the shore where he longed to be and the sea stormy between. He had five plays all laid out, he’d tell me, and waiting for the day. …

The tragedy of our time in the theatre is the tragedy of Clifford Odets. Not that I share the sentiment expressed in his obituaries that he’d failed in his career. Clifford influenced a generation of playwrights—Art Miller, who’s sitting here; Tennessee Williams, who told me that his first arousing…

However, the main reason for my devotion to the cause was my concern for Molly. She’d invested her soul, nothing less, in her hopes for a pleasant life of work together, side by side, in the “perfect” home she’d made. Pleasant! I grew to hate that word. I don’t know exactly why; perhaps she used it…

Men called geniuses have been the joy of my existence—but I didn’t know them as geniuses. All those I’ve known and worked with—Aaron Copland, Clifford Odets, Tennessee Williams, Harold Clurman, Orson Welles, Marlon Brando—have a joyous intensity in work and have passed it on to me. They are blessed…