Suzan Quotes

Some people think I am an issue-oriented writer, but I've never said to myself, I'm gong to write about such-and-such an issue - that would make for incredibly boring writing, at least to my taste. Creating someone I don't know and her made-up world shows us more about who we are - is actually a better mirror - than if I were to parade in front of you an instantly recognizable person in an instantly recognizable situation. I'm not saying, Let's make it all abstract and weird and difficult and thereby you will know more about yourself. My process is much more organic than that. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

Certainly she had little experience of the world (Aunt Cord reminded her of this almost daily), but She had an idea that people who set on by saying Let me be honest with you were apt to go on by telling you straight-faced that rain fell up, money grew on trees, and babies were brought by the Grand Featherex. ~ Stephen King

A play is a blueprint of an event: a way of creating and rewriting history through the medium of literature. Since history is a recorded or remembered event, theatre, for me, is the perfect place to 'make' history--that is, because so much of African-American history has been unrecorded, dismembered, washed out, one of my tasks as a playwright is to--through literature and the special strange relationship between theatre and real-life--locate the ancestral burial ground, dig for bones, find bones, hear the bones sing, write it down. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

In the "Intervention" section of the book we go into that looping from a battery of positions (where healer and sufferer are blurred). I'm very interested in "repetition and revision" (to use Suzan Lori-Parks's phrase) and in the culture's desire to loop or repeat. ~ Laura Mullen

Difficulty creates the opportunity for self-reflection and compassion. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

My plays are for the kind of black people who relate to funk music, to Parliament-Funkadelic. When those guys get out of a spaceship - the idea that black people are from outer space, there's a poetic truth to that. We are this vast people. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

The schools I went to as a kid made me wary. It was clear to me that everything was a lie except math. ~ Suzan Shown Harjo

Someone yelled at me once, 'You never write about yourself.' People used to get so mad at me for that. But my definition of myself is completely up for grabs. I'm everywhere, just like we all are. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

Societies who do not care for their young people and old people are decadent, decaying societies. ~ Suzan Shown Harjo

The divorce papers remained unopened in the crisp yellow envelope. He had thrown it on his desk without a backward glance. Between his lashes, his dark chocolate eyes burned with fury but there was something else in the depths that she hadn't seen in a long time, passion. ~ Suzan Battah

I don't consciously start writing a play that involves issues. After it's done, I sit back like everyone else and think about what it means. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

While she spent her time in correspondence, Laurin spent her free time with Albert.
Neither Laurin nor Albert, or anyone else inside the keep for that matter , could quite understand the appeal that Josephine and Graeme found in writing.
"Do ye plan on marryin ' the man through letters?" Laurin asked when she had returned from the evening meal. "Mayhap ye want to marry him by proxy."
Josephine simply shook her head and smiled as she went back to writing yet another letter to Graeme.
"How will ye consummate yer marriage?" Laurin asked. "Will ye do that by proxy as well?"
Josephine's face burned a brilliant shade of red as she looked away. She was at that moment responding to a question Graeme had posed on that very topic.
Laurin shook her head and threw up her hands in defeat . "I am goin' to bed."
Josephine returned to her letter. ~ Suzan Tisdale

She speaks French," Graeme muttered.
Traigh turned quite serious and nodded his head. "Aye, she be speakin' French. Mayhap she learned it from listenin' to ye and yer French friend speakin' it these past days." Though his tone sounded serious, there was a decidedly sarcastic undertone to it.
"Ye knew," Graeme said as he glared angrily at his brother.
Traigh feigned innocence. "Moi?"
Graeme's glare intensified. "Why did ye no' tell me? Why did she no' tell me?"
Traigh smiled thoughtfully and placed a hand on Graeme's shoulder . "Ye did no' ask. ~ Suzan Tisdale

Each moment is perfect and heaven-sent, in that each moment holds the seeds for growth. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

When anyone gets devoured by drugs or alcohol, their souls are in hiding on another plane. Addictions are a kind of possession and to recover our true selves, we need help remembering who we really are. ~ Suzan Saxman

Everybody's got a Hole. Ain't nobody ever lived who don't got a Hole in them somewheres. When I say Hole you know what I'm talking about, dontcha? Soft spot, sweet spot, opening, blind spot, Itch, Gap, call it what you want but I call it a Hole. To get the best of a situation you gotta know a man's Hole. Everybody's got one, just don't everybody got one in the same place.

Some got a Hole in they head. Now, you may think "Hole in the head" is just another way of saying stupid, but "Hole in the head" means more than that. It means they got a lack and a craving for knowledge. Not just the lack, now, but the craving too. A man could have a Hole just about anywheres: in the head, in the wallet (which means he burns his money), in the pocket (which means he don't got no money to burn but would like some), in the pants, in the guts, in the stomach, in the heart. You offer a person with a Hole in the head some knowledge and they gonna be in yr pocket cause you done gived him the opportunity to taste what he craves, but if a person's got a Hole in they heart and you offer them knowledge, you won't be able to sway them none. A Hole-in-the-heart person craves company and kindness, not no book. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

I don't read reviews. I refuse to have my ego inflated or deflated by someone I don't know. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

For most Native Americans, there's no more offensive name in English. That non-Native folks think they get to measure or decide what offends us is adding insult to injury. ~ Suzan Shown Harjo

Armani froze to the spot, unable to move. Her breath tightened in her lungs, shivers of awareness ran down her spine, the sudden energy zipping through her body announcing the shimmer of recognition. ~ Suzan Battah

Thems cain't work together, fails together. ~ Suzan Still

Armani halted, thinking twice about making her way over there, but she pushed forward not wanting to believe something was wrong. There was nothing worse than walking into a nightmare. And Armani just did. The air in her lungs seized when she saw her draped all over him. She blinked a few times, but Lily was still pressing her body all over Rafael.
Armani wanted to kill her, right then and there. ~ Suzan Battah

Religions build theories about the world and then prevent them from being tested. Religions provide nice, appealing, and comforting ideas, and cloak them in a mask of "truth, beauty, and goodness." The theories can then thrive despite being untrue, ugly, or cruel. In the end, there is no ultimate truth to be found and locked up forever, but there are truthful theories and better or worse predictions. I do defend the idea that science, at its best, is more truthful than religion. ~ Suzan Blackmore

What was your first kiss like?"he had asked.
She answered, "I do not know as I have yet to experience such. Mayhap I should find a willing young man to help teach me how to kiss before I marry. With you being such a worldly and experienced man, mayhap you would want a wife who is just as experienced and worldly?"
His response left her laughing almost uncontrollably.
"It would bring me much relief to know you have not one grain of experience with kissing. I would hate to think you were comparing my kisses with anyone else's. Equally important is the fact that I might be drawn and quartered before our wedding day, for gutting any man who dare even think about kissing you. You would, in truth, be saving countless lives by remaining ignorant on the matter. ~ Suzan Tisdale

Their long overdue kiss was interrupted far too soon for either of their likings.
"Well, it be about time!"
Nothing on God's earth can douse a man's ardor like the sound of his mother's voice. ~ Suzan Tisdale

Whenever the demons arise to attack, you know you are on the right path. ~ Suzan Saxman

See, don't just look. Your partner is so much more than their appearance. It's how kind their heart is, how lovely they smile, how much they care and have compassion, how generous and giving they are which becomes much more attractive. ~ Suzan Battah

Being a playwright of any race is difficult, and Lord knows it gets more difficult the further you get from the middle of the road. I don't know what kind of magic my mojo is working, but it's working. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

Overweight southern senators are easy targets. They too easily become focal points of all evil, allowing the arts community to willfully ignore our own bigotry, our own petty evils, our own intolerance which--evil senators or no--will be the death of the arts. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

Everything I write doesn't appear to be biography until later. I often say that I've never written about anything I've experienced. Of course, that's not true. But it doesn't appear familiar to me at all. And maybe that's because I have to be in a kind of coma in order to write. If it appeared familiar, I wouldn't. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

One could get locked in by the Pulitzer, thinking, 'This is who I am.' Doors open with it, but doors in your mind could close. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

Had he read that first letter, he imagined he would have come for her sooner. After reading the next, he would have been waiting outside the gates of her keep like a besotted fool and carried her off at the first hour possible. By the time he read her sixth letter, he was certain of it. ~ Suzan Tisdale

Aye, without a doubt, he adored her. He would protect her and love her until he took his last breath on God's beautiful earth. What more could a woman ask for in a man? Strength, honor, good looks were a welcome change to the men she'd known before the ~ Suzan Tisdale

Watson, you idiot. Some so-and-so has stolen our tent. ~ Suzan St. Maur

People ask me when I decided to become a playwright, and I tell them I decide to do it every day. Most days it's very hard because I'm frightened - not frightened of writing a bad play, although that happens often with me. I'm frightened of encountering the wilderness of my own spirit, which is always , no matter how many plays I write, a new and uncharted place. Every day when I sit down to write, I can't remember how it's done. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

So, we're all in agreement," Armani declared brightly into the tense atmosphere. "Good, let's get this over with. Shut up Rafael, don't say it, you would do the same for me." "That's different!" he snapped. "You shouldn't." She couldn't comprehend his reasoning. "Why?" Rafael blinked a few times. "Because you don't love me the way I love you! ~ Suzan Battah

I was far too young when my mother passed away. I was unable to have a conversation with her on the matter of consummation. Your mother however, has been very helpful in that regard. She assures me that if you do everything correctly, then I shall quite enjoy that aspect of our marriage. She has also told me that if you have any questions on the matter, seek out her counsel, for it was she who taught your father the proper way to please a woman.

Within the hour she had Graeme's short response on the matter.

Joie,
I find myself asking another boon of you. In the future, I ask that you never mention my mother or my father when we discuss the topic of consummation. I fear now that my sleep this night will be plagued with nightmares.
The hour is now late and I must bid you adieu. Sleep well, sweet Josephine.
Graeme ~ Suzan Tisdale

History is time that won't quit. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

Every play I write is about love and distance. And time. And from that we can get things like history. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

I learned that if we embrace what's happening, we are also embracing what is possible - and a road opens up for God to meet us halfway. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

She tapped her chest. "No, I'm not a freak, okay, so could you stop pressuring me."
Rafael muttered something under his breath, throwing up his hands in surrender. "So what am I? What's Karhl, Jayani, my brother, and all the BaSatai? Are we all freaks? Just
because this human has some kind of fascination with labeling you, you believe in it. Be your own person, Armani, not what someone else says you are. ~ Suzan Battah

This explains why I've been making Recession Tea- letting a teabag steep for half the time it should so I can use it again for a second cup later. ~ Suzan Colon

Quality is like quantity, but there's a lot less of it. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

My plays aren't stylistically the same. Just being an African-American woman playwright on Broadway is experimental. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

I knew that I was learning one of the most important lessons of my life: that instead of waiting for the perfect opportunity, I should work toward a realization that every opportunity is perfect. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

Traigh came to help her dismount, a broad smile making creases around his eyes. "I fear ye missed our summer, Joie."
Her brow drew in with confusion. "But it is summer, Traigh," she told him.
"Aye, it might well be summer elsewhere in the world, but here, it only last three days. We had our summer last week. ~ Suzan Tisdale