Obama said that his performance at bowling was so bad 'it was like the Special Olympics or something.' Disability, by Obama's definition, was about difference and failure.
— Jack Thorne
I'm a constant idiot in conversation - I always seem to sound either smug or stupid. Writing plays was a way of winning the conversation by controlling the conversation.
I find small talk exhausting, and I don't like myself when I'm around people.
Writing is one of those jobs that everyone has an opinion on. I don't think this is a bad thing.
They're odd beasts, musicals, but what I like about them is the way they allow windows into people's lives. When people sing, you get an opportunity to see a vulnerability, a glimpse of a life in a messed-up head.
I tended to be the nerdy kid - stood at the back, watching other people having fun - I wasn't always necessarily a big part of the fun myself.
When I was in my early twenties, I spent six months bedbound with a condition called Cholinergic Urticaria that basically means I'm allergic to heat, including my own body. It was bad.
The stressful time is the blank page at the beginning. When you're starting to see things being made flesh, and you're able to respond to that flesh, that's really exciting.
I think London is a bit sad, and I find it a bit overwhelming. There's a lot of quite unhappy people, and it's very goal-driven.
I am trying to write a play that is big and I feel represents me - that's my big ambition.
I wrote about 22 plays before 'When You Cure Me,' which was staged in 2005. I occasionally get them out and have a read, thinking maybe there's a thought or an idea or even a turn of phrase that I could use for something new. There's not. They're dire.
I'm going to feel intimidated whatever: that's just my natural state. So I may as well embrace intimidation.
I really do love working. There's no day where I don't want to write.
Hanging out with Pierce Brosnan on the set of 'A Long Way Down' was quite an extraordinary thing to do. The interesting thing is, he never behaves like a star. He's a really nice man.
At my school, when kids went into the army at 16, they didn't do it in a gung-ho, Tom Cruise, 'Born on the Fourth of July' way. They were generally - and I hope this doesn't offend them - the more vulnerable members of the class. They enlisted seeking family, and they didn't always find it.
I've just had a little boy, and my wife and I called him Elliott because 'E.T.' sort of saved my life because that film is absolutely about something being out there that's greater than yourself.
My wife would probably tell you I'm quite a dark person all the time!
I'm not very articulate. I don't have that skill.
I can't do anything other than writing. I'm not very able, generally. If I'd not been a writer, I would probably be a very unsuccessful political adviser to someone or have worked for a council.
I struggle quite a lot in rehearsals, partly because I'm shy, partly because I still don't really understand the work that actors and directors do. I love the magic at the end, but the getting there - the wrong turns that are necessary to make something work - I find slightly beguiling and worrying.
It's not that I don't like other people - I do. I just don't like me.
I was taken to court for trying to travel on a child ticket to Glastonbury '97. I was, and still am, 6 ft. 5.
I cook every night: it's part of the marriage pact.
The thing about having a very young audience in the theatre is that sometimes they laugh at the bullying scenes. It's really interesting, what that means. It still confuses me slightly, you know; someone's getting quite brutally bullied on stage and people are laughing. I think it's very hard being young.
When you write a script, you hope that people will give it life beyond the script.
I don't really write with actors in mind; I write with characters and then hope desperately that we can get good actors to play those parts.
I like working. But now I have a deal with my wife that I take a half-day off each week.
I wrote my first play because I wanted to try directing something, and I couldn't afford the rights - it was an adaptation of a book called 'The Wave' by Morton Rhue.
