"He read a lot. His income went up and down and was never reliable. His reputation went up and down and was also unreliable. He avoided the film industry entirely. Productions of his work caused him to despair, but he kept writing. He gave up heavy drinking early on and was mostly abstemious, disciplined; he exercised. He wrote his plays in longhand. He took his time. He followed the news; he was politically brave. He wrote of the self and also of the world. He wrote for the stage and also for publication. He was theatrical; he was dialectical. He cultivated a public image; a small crowd of remarkable people intersected with the largely antisocial playwright: Emma Goldman, John Reed, Robert Edmond Jones, Paul Robeson, George Jean Nathan, Sean O’Casey, Hart Crane..

Kushner on O'Neill in TLS Dec.18.03