For me, making architecture is the same as thinking. For more than thirty years, I have been making architecture by going back and forth between ideals and reality, between the fictive and the substantive. My hope has been and continues to be, not only to solve realistic problems, but also to pursue the ideal by overlaying speculative imaginings.

A good coach is somebody who has a clear concept of what they want and what they love in the game, is capable of expressing it in an understandable way, and is able to obtain it on the football pitch. They're also someone who loves to help others. This means something more than just going out and coaching a session, they really try to understand who a player is and find the key to helping them. All players have different problems, and we have the capacity to help them solve them. That's why this is a very interesting aspect of being a coach, we have the chance to be capable to influence people's lives.

We thought that there were certain possibilities, in terms of physical movement, in terms of community, and in terms of what dance could address in our society. And those were the issues that we went after. And we worked with a great deal of rigor. Which is to say, we were very, very dedicated. We worked six days a week, we worked at least six hours every day. We did not perform much at all. It was really about the experience of learning and exploring and growing, for five years.

On the best days, I stop pleading, stop bargaining and watch-checking and fall into a rhythm so satisfying that I simply forget I’m working. So much of my writing day feels like well-digging. Sometimes I dig 200ft down before coming back up, dry. Every day I search for water.

I don’t think of it as research. I read for interest and enjoyment, and when I cease to enjoy it I stop. I didn’t research quantum mechanics but I was fascinated by the mystery that lies in the foundation of the observable world, of which the most familiar example is the wave/particle duality of light. I thought it was a good metaphor for human personality. The language of espionage lends itself to this duality—think of the double agent.

The look of the thing is one thing. The sound of it is more important. … When you write a play, it makes a certain kind of noise in your head, and for me rehearsals are largely a process of trying to reproduce that noise. It is not always wise to reproduce it in every instance, but that’s another question.