Quotes by August Wilson

“Ive lived a blessed life. Im ready.”

Black Mary: Leroy. And John. And Cujoe. And Sam. And Robert. One after the other they come and they go. You cant hold on to none of them. They slip right through your hands. They use you up and you cant hold them. They all the time taking till its gone. They aint tried to put nothing to it. They aint got nothing in their hand. They aint got nothing to add to it. They too busy taking. They taking cause they need. You cant blame them for that. They so full of their needs they cant see you. Now here you come. You dont even know what you need. All you see is a woman. You cant see nothing else. You cant think nothing else. That blinds you. (Black Mary turns to him. A new thought occurs to her.)Okay, Mr. Citizen. Ill come to your room tonight. But the morning got to come, Mr. Citizen. What you got then? You tell me tomorrow. You wake up and look at your hands and see what you got. Citizen: I got me. Thats all there is. Black Mary: That aint never gonna be enough.

I been with strangers all day and they treated me like family. I come in here to family and you treat me like a stranger.

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.

Please, Mr. Engineer let a man ride the linePlease, Mr. Engineer let a man ride the lineI aint got no ticket please let me ride the blinds

You cant visit the sins of the father upon the child.

Dont you try and go through life worrying about if somebody like you or not. You best be making sure they doing right by you.

My early attempts writing plays, which are very poetic, did not use the language that I work in now. I didnt recognize the poetry in everyday language of black America. I thought I had to change it to create art.

Aunt Esther: You think you supposed to know everything. Life is a mystery. Dont you know life is a mystery? I see you still trying to figure it out. It aint all for you to know. Its all an adventure. Thats all life is. But you got to trust that adventure.

Sometimes you find bad luck and good luck in the same place.

Some people carry their luck with them and people got to find it.

You right! You one hundred percent right! I done spent the last seventeen years worrying about what you got. Now it’s your turn, see? I’ll tell you what to do. You grown . . . we don established that. You a man. Now, let’s see you act like one. Turn your behind around and walk out this yard. And when you get out there in the alley . . . you can forget about this house. See? Cause this is my house. You go on and be a man and get your own house. You can forget about this. You can forget about this. ‘Cause this is mine. You go on and get yours because I’m through with doing for you.

Jazz in itself is not struggling. That is, the music itself is not struggling... Its the attitude thats in trouble. My plays insist that we should not forget or toss away our history.

Once I started to value and respect my characters, I could really hear them. I just let them start talking.

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.

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.

I had always been fascinated with Napoleon because he was a self-made emperor; Victor Hugo said, Napoleons will to power, and it was the title of my paper. And I submitted it to my teacher, and he didnt think I had written it. And he wanted me to explain it to him.

All art is political in the sense that it serves someones politics.

Like most people, I have this sort of love-hate relationship with Pittsburgh. This is my home, and at times I miss it and find it tremendously exciting, and other times I want to catch the first thing out that has wheels.