Brian Friel

Brian Friel, one of the greatest playwrights from Ireland known most famously for Dancing at Lughnasa, is notorious for his privacy. This was one of his rare answers in an interiew and I think it's appropriate-just the facts: 'I am married, have five children, live in the country, smoke too much, fish a bit, read a lot, worry a lot, get involved in sporadic causes and invariably regret the involvement, and hope that between now and my death I will have acquired a religion, a philosophy, a sense of life that will make the end less frightening than it appears to me at this moment.'"