August Wilson Quotes

Most memorable quotes from August Wilson.

August Wilson Famous Quotes

Reading August Wilson quotes, download and share images of famous quotes by August Wilson. Righ click to see or save pictures of August Wilson quotes that you can use as your wallpaper for free.

He living too far in the past.
August Wilson Quotes: He living too far in
I found out life's hard but it ain't impossible ...
August Wilson Quotes: I found out life's hard
Don't try and go through life worrying about if somebody like you or not. You best be making sure they doing right by you,
August Wilson Quotes: Don't try and go through
Life don't owe you nothing.
August Wilson Quotes: Life don't owe you nothing.
There are always and only two trains running. There is life and there is death. Each of us rides them both. To live life with dignity, to celebrate and accept responsibility for your presence in the world is all that can be asked of anyone.
August Wilson Quotes: There are always and only
You jumped but I'm falling too.
August Wilson Quotes: You jumped but I'm falling
I give you sugar for sugar
And salt for salt
If you can't get along with me
It's your own damn fault.
August Wilson Quotes: I give you sugar for
When I first started writing plays I couldn't write good dialogue because I didn't respect how black people talked. I thought that in order to make art out of their dialogue I had to change it, make it into something different. Once I learned to value and respect my characters, I could really hear them. I let them start talking.
August Wilson Quotes: When I first started writing
I was born to a time of fire.
August Wilson Quotes: I was born to a
My hero when I was 14 was Sonny Liston. No matter what kinds of problems you were having with your parents or at school, whatever, Sonny Liston would go and knock guys out, and that made it all right.
August Wilson Quotes: My hero when I was
You can put law on paper but that don't make it right.
August Wilson Quotes: You can put law on
I think that's the core of black aesthetics: the ability to improvise. That is what has enabled our [black people's] survival.
August Wilson Quotes: I think that's the core
From Romare Bearden I learned that the fullness and richness of everyday life can be rendered without compromise or sentimentality.
August Wilson Quotes: From Romare Bearden I learned
I once wrote a short story called 'The Best Blues Singer in the World,' and it went like this: 'The streets that Balboa walked were his own private ocean, and Balboa was drowning.' End of story. That says it all. Nothing else to say. I've been rewriting that same story over and over again. All my plays are rewriting that same story.
August Wilson Quotes: I once wrote a short
A nigger that ain't afraid to die is the worse kind of nigger for the white man. He can't hold that power over you. That's what I learned when I killed that cat. I got the power of death too.
August Wilson Quotes: A nigger that ain't afraid
Land [is] the only thing God ain't making no more of.
August Wilson Quotes: Land [is] the only thing
Please, Mr. Engineer let a man ride the line
Please, Mr. Engineer let a man ride the line
I ain't got no ticket please let me ride the blinds
August Wilson Quotes: Please, Mr. Engineer let a
All you need in the world is love and laughter. That's all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other.
August Wilson Quotes: All you need in the
You get to the point where your demons, which are terrifying, get smaller and smaller and you get bigger and bigger.
August Wilson Quotes: You get to the point
I dropped out of school when I was 15 years old. I dropped out because I guess I wasn't getting anything out of my investment in the school.
August Wilson Quotes: I dropped out of school
ROSE: You can't be nobody but who you are, Cory. That shadow wasn't nothing but you growing into yourself. You either got to grow into it or cut it down to fit you. But that's all you got to make life with. That's all you got to measure yourself against that world out there. Your daddy wanted you to everything he wasn't...and at the same time he tried to make you into everything he was. I don't know if he was right or wrong...but I do know he meant to do more good than he meant to do harm. He wasn't always right. Sometimes when he touched he bruised. And sometimes when he took me in his arms he cut.
August Wilson Quotes: ROSE: You can't be nobody
I seen a man grab hold to a fellow and cut off his arm. Cut it off at the shoulder. He had to work at it a while...but he cut it clean off. The man looked down saw his arm gone and started crying. After that he more dangerous with that one arm than the other man is with two. He got less to lose. There's a lot of one-arm men walking around.
August Wilson Quotes: I seen a man grab
I've seen some terrible plays, but I generally enjoy myself. One play I walked out of, I have a tremendous respect for the author. That was Robert Wilson, something called 'Network,' which consisted of Wilson sitting on a bunk, the dialogue of the movie 'Network' looped in while a chair on a rope went up and down.
August Wilson Quotes: I've seen some terrible plays,
CORY: The whole time I was growing up...living in his house...Papa was like a shadow that followed you everywhere. It weighed on you and sunk into your flesh. It would wrap around you and lay there until you couldn't tell which one was you anymore. That shadow digging in your flesh. Trying to crawl in. Trying to live through you. Everywhere I looked, Troy Maxson was staring back at me...hiding under the bed...in the closet. I'm just saying I've got to find a way to get rid of that shadow, Mama.
August Wilson Quotes: CORY: The whole time I
What comes forth from you as an artist cannot be controlled. But you have responsibilities as a global citizen. Your history dictates your duty. And by writing about black people, you are not limiting yourself. The experiences of African-Americans are as wide open as God's closet.
August Wilson Quotes: What comes forth from you
There's no idea in the world that is not contained by black life. I could write forever about the black experience in America.
August Wilson Quotes: There's no idea in the
I been wading in the water. I been walking all over the River Jordan. But what it get me, huh? I done been baptized with blood of the lamb and the fire of the Holy Ghost. But what I got, huh? My enemies all around me picking the flesh from my bones. I'm chocking on my own blood and all you got to give me is salvation?
August Wilson Quotes: I been wading in the
ROSE: I married your daddy and settled down to cooking his super and keeping clean sheets on the bed. When your daddy walked through the house he was so big he filled it up. That was my first mistake. Not to make him leave some room for me. For my part in the matter. But at that time I wanted that. I wanted a house that I could sing in. And that's what your daddy gave me. I didn't know to keep up his strength I had to give up little pieces of mine. I did that. I took on his life as mine and mixed up the pieces so that you couldn't hardly tell which was which anymore. It was my choice. It was my life and I didn't have to live it like that.But that's what life offered me in the way of being a woman and I took it. I grabbed hold of it with both hands.
August Wilson Quotes: ROSE: I married your daddy
What happened, of course, was that I was writing a play set in the 1940's that was supposed to be somehow representative of black American life, and I didn't have any women in there. And I knew that wasn't going to work.
August Wilson Quotes: What happened, of course, was
I don't go by what the law say. The law's liable to say anything. I go by if it's right or not. It don't matter what the law say. I take and look at it for myself.
August Wilson Quotes: I don't go by what
I done learned my mistake and learned to do what's right by it. You still trying to get something for nothing. Life don't owe you nothing. You owe it to yourself.
- Troy -
August Wilson Quotes: I done learned my mistake
You trying to tell me a woman can't be nothing without a man. But you alright, huh? You can just walk out of here without me - without a woman – and still be a man. That's alright. Ain't nobody gonna ask you, "Avery, who you got to love you?" That's alright for you. But everybody gonna be worried about Berniece. "How Berniece gonna take care of herself? How she gonna raise that child without a man? Wonder what she do with herself. How she gonna live like that?" Everybody got all kinds of questions for Berniece. Everybody telling me I can't be a woman unless I got a man. Well, you tell me, Avery – you know – how much a woman am I?
August Wilson Quotes: You trying to tell me
The impulse to write the poem, that impulse is a great dramatic impulse. But hell, anybody could write a play. I do know this: all writers are not dramatists. You may be a great writer, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're a dramatist. Very few people have done both.
August Wilson Quotes: The impulse to write the
I am not a historian. I happen to think that the content of my mother's life - her myths, her superstitions, her prayers, the contents of her pantry, the smell of her kitchen, the song that escaped from her sometimes parched lips, her thoughtful repose and pregnant laughter - are all worthy of art.
August Wilson Quotes: I am not a historian.
So somehow, things that seem extraneous to the play in reality are not. The scene lasts 37 minutes, and you only need 12 minutes of that for the plot. But if you pull the rest of it out, it's not my play.
August Wilson Quotes: So somehow, things that seem
From the deep and the near South the sons and daughters of newly freed African slaves wander into the city. Isolated, cut off from memory, having forgotten the names of the gods and only guessing at their faces, they arrive dazed and stunned, their heart kicking in their chest with a song worth singing.
August Wilson Quotes: From the deep and the
I've never seen 'Seinfeld', never seen 'The Cosby Show'; I just don't watch it. I saw half of 'Oprah' one time. I'd rather read.
August Wilson Quotes: I've never seen 'Seinfeld', never
You can't visit the sins of the father upon the child.
August Wilson Quotes: You can't visit the sins
Eli: Freedom is what you make it.

Solly: That's what I'm saying. You got to fight to make it mean something.
August Wilson Quotes: Eli: Freedom is what you
I just want to come and sit on your front porch and drink mint juleps.
August Wilson Quotes: I just want to come
All art is political in the sense that it serves someone's politics.
August Wilson Quotes: All art is political in
I'm trying to take culture and put it onstage, demonstrate it is capable of sustaining you. There is no idea that can't be contained by life: Asian life, European life, certainly black life. My plays are about love, honor, duty, betrayal - things humans have written about since the beginning of time.
August Wilson Quotes: I'm trying to take culture
Style ain't nothing but keeping the same idea from beginning to end. Everybody got it.
August Wilson Quotes: Style ain't nothing but keeping
In 1977, I wrote a series of poems about a character, Black Bart, a former cattle rustler-turned-alchemist. A good friend, Claude Purdy, who is a stage director, suggested I turn the poems into a play.
August Wilson Quotes: In 1977, I wrote a
I don't need nobody to bleed for me! I can bleed for myself.
August Wilson Quotes: I don't need nobody to
Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.
August Wilson Quotes: Confront the dark parts of
I write for myself, and my goal is bringing that world and that experience of black Americans to life on the stage and giving it a space there.
August Wilson Quotes: I write for myself, and
Blacks have traditionally had to operate in a situation where whites have set themselves up as the custodians of the black experience.
August Wilson Quotes: Blacks have traditionally had to
You should have held me tight. You should have grabbed me and held on.
August Wilson Quotes: You should have held me
I think it was the ability of the theater to communicate ideas and extol virtues that drew me to it. And also, I was, and remain, fascinated by the idea of an audience as a community of people who gather willingly to bear witness.
August Wilson Quotes: I think it was the
Suffice it to say, I'm not poor.
August Wilson Quotes: Suffice it to say, I'm
You are responsible for the world that you live in. It is not government's responsibility. It is not your school's or your social club's or your church's or your neighbor's or your fellow citizen's. It is yours, utterly and singularly yours.
August Wilson Quotes: You are responsible for the
I know some things when I start. I know, let's say, that the play is going to be a 1970s or a 1930s play, and it's going to be about a piano, but that's it. I slowly discover who the characters are as I go along.
August Wilson Quotes: I know some things when
Blues is the bedrock of everything I do. All the characters in my plays, their ideas and their attitudes, the stance that they adopt in the world, are all ideas and attitudes that are expressed in the blues.
August Wilson Quotes: Blues is the bedrock of
Sometimes you're lucky and you don't even know it.
August Wilson Quotes: Sometimes you're lucky and you
I believe in the American theatre. I believe in its power to inform about the human condition, its power to heal ... its power to uncover the truths we wrestle from uncertain and sometimes unyielding realities.
August Wilson Quotes: I believe in the American
If you want to support a writer, produce the first five plays he writes.
August Wilson Quotes: If you want to support
I'm a De Niro fan. I went eleven years without seeing a movie; the last one before that, February 1980, was De Niro and Scorsese in 'Raging Bull,' and when I went back, it was 'Cape Fear,' with De Niro and Scorsese. I picked up right where I left off at.
August Wilson Quotes: I'm a De Niro fan.
I had always been fascinated with Napoleon because he was a self-made emperor; Victor Hugo said, 'Napoleon's will to power,' and it was the title of my paper. And I submitted it to my teacher, and he didn't think I had written it. And he wanted me to explain it to him.
August Wilson Quotes: I had always been fascinated
You die how you live.
August Wilson Quotes: You die how you live.
I first got involved in theater in 1968, at the height of a social tumult. I was a poet.
August Wilson Quotes: I first got involved in
Freedom is heavy. You got to put your shoulder to freedom. Put your shoulder to it and hope your back holds up.
August Wilson Quotes: Freedom is heavy. You got
Aunt Esther: You think you supposed to know everything. Life is a mystery. Don't you know life is a mystery? I see you still trying to figure it out. It ain't all for you to know. It's all an adventure. That's all life is. But you got to trust that adventure.
August Wilson Quotes: Aunt Esther: You think you
I cried a river of tears but he was too heavy to float on them. So I dragged him with me these years across an ocean.
August Wilson Quotes: I cried a river of
It was early on in 1965 when I wrote some of my first poems. I sent a poem to 'Harper's' magazine because they paid a dollar a line. I had an eighteen-line poem, and just as I was putting it into the envelope, I stopped and decided to make it a thirty-six-line poem. It seemed like the poem came back the next day: no letter, nothing.
August Wilson Quotes: It was early on in
I hope this leads you to where you're going.
August Wilson Quotes: I hope this leads you
Aunt Ester: He didn't care if anybody else knew if he did or not. He knew. He didn't do it for the people standing around watching. He did it for himself. He say I'd rather die in truth than to live a lie. That way he can say that his life is worth more than a bucket of nails. What is your life worth, Mr. Citizen? That what you got to find out. You got to find a way to live in truth. If you live right you die right.
August Wilson Quotes: Aunt Ester: He didn't care
As soon as white folks say a play's good, the theater is jammed with blacks and whites.
August Wilson Quotes: As soon as white folks
I think all in all, one thing a lot of plays seem to be saying is that we need to, as black Americans, to make a connection with our past in order to determine the kind of future we're going to have. In other words, we simply need to know who we are in relation to our historical presence in America.
August Wilson Quotes: I think all in all,
Herald Loomis, you shining! You shining like new money!
August Wilson Quotes: Herald Loomis, you shining! You
i love music more than food!!!!!!!!!!
August Wilson Quotes: i love music more than
Everybody in a hurry to slow down.
August Wilson Quotes: Everybody in a hurry to
My greatest influence has been the blues. And that's a literary influence, because I think the blues is the best literature that we as black Americans have.
August Wilson Quotes: My greatest influence has been
There's no reason why you can't say "August Wilson, playwright" even though all of my work, every single play, is about black Americans, about black American culture, about the black experience in America. I write about the black experience of men, or I write about black folks. That's who I am. In the same manner that Chekhov wrote about the Russians, I write about blacks. I couldn't do anything else. I wouldn't do anything else.
August Wilson Quotes: There's no reason why you
I don't look at our society today too much. My focus is still in the past, and part of the reason is because what I do - the wellspring of art, or what I do - l get from the blues. So I listen to the music of a particular period that I'm working on, and I think inside the music is clues to what is happening with the people.
August Wilson Quotes: I don't look at our
All you need is the blues. To me, the blues is the book, it's the bible, it's everything.
August Wilson Quotes: All you need is the
Some people carry their luck with them and people got to find it.
August Wilson Quotes: Some people carry their luck
I don't write for a particular audience. I work as an artist, and I think the audience of one, which is the self, and I have to satisfy myself as an artist. So I always say that I write for the same people that Picasso painted for. I think he painted for himself.
August Wilson Quotes: I don't write for a
I think the play offers (white Americans) a different way to look at black Americans For instance, in 'Fences' they see a garbageman, a person they don't really look at, although they see a garbageman every day. By looking at Troy's life, white people find out that the content of this black garbageman's life is affected by the same things- love, honor, beauty, betrayal, duty. Recognizing that these things are as much part of his life as theirs can affect how they think about and deal with black people in their lives.
August Wilson Quotes: I think the play offers
In 1980 I sent a play, 'Jitney,' to the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, won a Jerome Fellowship, and found myself sitting in a room with sixteen playwrights. I remember looking around and thinking that since I was sitting there, I must be a playwright, too.
August Wilson Quotes: In 1980 I sent a
Love don't know no age and it don't know no experience.
August Wilson Quotes: Love don't know no age
CORY: You ain't never gave me nothing! You ain't never done nothing but hold me back. Afraid I was gonna be better than you. All you ever did was try and make me scared of you. I used to tremble every time you called my name. Every time I heard your footsteps in the house. Wondering all the time...what's Papa gonna say if I do this?...What's he gonna say if I do that?...What's Papa gonna say if I turn on the radio? And Mama, too...she tries...but she's scared of you.
August Wilson Quotes: CORY: You ain't never gave
The simpler you say it, the more eloquent it is.
August Wilson Quotes: The simpler you say it,
For me, the original play becomes an historical document: This is where I was when I wrote it, and I have to move on now to something else.
August Wilson Quotes: For me, the original play
I think that as a playwright, if I detail that environment, then I'm taking away something from them [designers]. I'm taking away their creativity and their ability to have input themselves, not just to follow what the playwright has written. So I do a minimum set description and let the designers create within that.
August Wilson Quotes: I think that as a
Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.
August Wilson Quotes: Use the pain as fuel,
The blues are important primarily because they contain the cultural expression and the cultural response to blacks in America and to the situation that they find themselves in. And contained in the blues is a philosophical system at work. And as part of the oral tradition, this is a way of passing along information.
August Wilson Quotes: The blues are important primarily
My influences have been what I call my four Bs - the primary one being the blues, then Borges, Baraka, and Bearden.
August Wilson Quotes: My influences have been what
Woman . . . I do the best I can do. I come in here every Friday. I carry a sack of potatoes and a bucket of lard. You all line up at the door with your hands out. I give you the lint from my pockets. I give you my sweat and my blood. I ain't got no tears. I done spent them. We go upstairs in that room at night . . . and I fall down on you and try to blast a hole into forever. I get up Monday morning . . . find my lunch on the table. I go out. Make my way. Find my strength to carry me through to the next Friday.
August Wilson Quotes: Woman . . . I
August Wilhelm Von Schlegel Quotes «
» Augusta DeJuan Hathaway Quotes