I'm happy that I feel a little less out of place in filmmaking than I once was - but it's almost impossible for a playwright in the U.S. to make a living. You can have a play like I did with 'Angels ' and it still generates income for me but it's not enough for me to live on and have health insurance.

As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals they will kill each other.

I sit on my duff smoke cigarettes and watch TV. I'm not exactly a poster girl for healthy living.

From the Taoist point of view the natural result of this harmonious way of living is happiness.

I think people should know more of Africa in terms of its joie de vivre its feeling for life. In spite of the images that one knows about Africa - the economic poverty the corruption - there's a joy to living and a happiness in community living together in community life which may be missing here in America.

How often we fail to realize our good fortune in living in a country where happiness is more than a lack of tragedy.

Each person is living for himself his own happiness is all he can ever personally feel.

When I was a little kid all I wanted to do was to escape what I thought was the country and get to a city. Probably film and television had influenced me so much I really thought the key to happiness was living a very artificial life in a penthouse in New York with martini glasses.

Those in the west who dismiss the repressiveness of laws against women in countries like Iran no matter how benign their intentions present a condescending view not just of the religion but also of women living in Muslim majority countries as if the desire for choice and happiness is the monopoly of women in the west.

It is also rarer to find happiness in a man surrounded by the miracles of technology than among people living in the desert of the jungle and who by the standards set by our society would be considered destitute and out of touch.