August Wilson Quotations | Page 2

to register the ambiguous presence of white folks in a segregated black world -- the way you see them nowhere and feel them everywhere.

When you look at a fellow, if you taught yourself to look for it, you can see his song written on him. Tell you what kind of man he is in the world.

To my observation, the black middle class has failed to return the expertise and sophistication and resources that they've gained in American society over the past 50 years back to the community,

You have to make your own definition of yourself. That's crucial. When I do interviews, I am expected to become some sociologist. I have to speak to the condition of black America. My preference would be: Let's talk about theater. Let's talk about art. The fact that I am black is self-evident.

Blacks in America want to forget about slavery -- the stigma, the shame. That's the wrong move. If you can't be who you are, who can you be? How can you know what to do? We have our history. We have our book, which is the blues. And we forget it all.

Black actors are mostly locked out of the house, and there is something dreadfully wrong with that,

The way I see it, the stage tells the story for the ear, and the screen for the eye... On stage, you can't really control where the viewer's eye goes; there's a whole stage picture there, and the viewer can be looking anywhere. But with the camera, if you want the viewer to look at something in particular, you can put their eye there.

assimilation that black Americans have been rejecting for the past 380 years.

it was as far away from New York as I could get.

It's not like poker: You can't throw your hand in. I've lived a blessed life. I'm ready.

I need a woman that fits in my hand.

I have to confess that I'm not a big movie person. I don't go to a lot of films. And I don't know very much about the history of stage-to-film adaptations.

He paused. ''But what if they say they're going to cut off the heads of my children? If it's just me, that's OK, but not my children.

An August heritage / August Wilson and The Pittsburgh Cycle

The end to the measure and meaning of my life.