You have to have hope. Its irresponsible to give false hope, which I think a lot of playwrights are guilty of. But I also think its irresponsible to simply be a nihilist, which quite a lot of playwrights, especially playwrights younger than me, have become guilty of. – Tony Kushner
A handful of works in history have had a direct impact on social policy: one or two works of Dickens, some of Zola, Uncle Toms Cabin and, in modern drama, Larry Kramers The Normal Heart. – Tony Kushner