"Blacks have traditionally had to operate in a situation where whites have set themselves up as the custodians of the black experience."
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Quote collection
August Wilson quotes (page 2 of 4)
67 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I may be personable, but I assure you I am a lion."
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"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."
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"All art is political in the sense that it serves someone's politics."
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"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."
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"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."
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"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."
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"I'm a black American playwright. I couldn't be anything else. I make my art out of black American culture; they're all cut out of the same cloth. That's who I am; that's who I write about."
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"I think that's the core of black aesthetics: the ability to improvise. That is what has enabled our [black people's] survival."
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"I don't write for a particular audience."
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"Life don't owe you nothing."
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"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."
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"I dont write particularly to effect social change. I believe writing can do that, but thats not why I write."
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"My influences have been what I call my four Bs - the primary one being the blues, then Borges, Baraka, and Bearden."
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"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."
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"Style ain't nothing but keeping the same idea from beginning to end. Everybody got it."
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"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."
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"I first got involved in theater in 1968, at the height of a social tumult. I was a poet."
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"You are responsible for the world that you live in."
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"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."
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