David Auburn Quotes & Sayings

You can't. Do you hear me? You think you've figured something out? You run over here so pleased with yourself because you changed your mind. Now you're certain. You're so ... sloppy. You don't know anything. The book, the math, the dates, the writing, all that stuff you decided with your buddies, it's just evidence. It doesn't finish the job. It doesn't prove anything. — David Auburn

Let X equal the quantity of all quantities of X. Let X equal the cold. It is cold in December. The months of cold equal November through February. There are four months of cold, and four of heat, leaving four months of indeterminate temperature. In February it snows. In March the Lake is a lake of ice. In September the students come back and the bookstores are full. Let X equal the month of full bookstores. The number of books approaches infinity as the number of months of cold approaches four. I will never be as cold now as I will in the future. The future of cold is infinite. The future of heat is the future of cold. The bookstores are infinite and so are never full except in September... — David Auburn

If I go back to the beginning, I could start it over again. I could go line by line; try and find a shorter way. I could try to make it ... better. — David Auburn

One [of the two ideas for PROOF] was to write about two sisters who are quarreling over the legacy of something left behind by their father. The other was about someone who knew that her parent had had problems of mental illness [and that] she might be going through the same thing. — David Auburn

Spending time with math people is a lot of fun. As a result of the play, I've had semi-drunken dinners with mathematicians all over the country. I recommend the experience. — David Auburn