I think theatre should always be somewhat suspect. - Václav Havel

When civil society languishes, when the life of organizations and voluntary associations is curtailed, then sooner or later political parties will begin to languish as well, until, ultimately, they become degenerate ghettos whose only purpose is to elevate their members into positions of power.

Every meaningful cultural act — wherever it takes place — is unquestionably good in and of itself, simply because it exists and because it offers something to someone. Yet can this value 'in itself' really be separated from 'the common good'? Is not one an integral part of the other from the start? Does not the bare fact that a work of art has meant something to someone — even if only for a moment, perhaps to a single person — already somehow change, however minutely, the overall condition for the better? ... Can we separate the awakening human soul from what it always, already is — an awakening human community?

But sometimes-especially in the hands of people with a tendency towards dogmatic, ideological thinking-this sentiment becomes a kind of hickory stick to crack across the knuckle of anyone who does not want, for whatever reason, to copy faithfully all the models presented-which today, of course, are western models. If that is what it means, then I can’t agree. Without being, as I have said, a seeker after some ‘third way’, I am opposed to blind imitation, especially if it becomes an ideology….We will never turn Czechoslovakia into a Federal Republic of Germany, or a France, or a Sweden, or a United States of America, and I don’t see the slightest reason why we should try.