August wilson

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 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.

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....

I don't write particularly to effect social change. I believe writing can do that, but that's not why I write.

I don't write for a particular audience.

Suffice it to say, I'm not poor.

Between speeches and awards, you can find something to do every other week. It's hard to write. Your focus gets splintered. Once you put one thing in your calendar, that month is gone.

As soon as white folks say a play's good, the theater is jammed with blacks and whites.

I first got involved in theater in 1968, at the height of a social tumult. I was a poet.

Blacks have traditionally had to operate in a situation where whites have set themselves up as the custodians of the black experience.