All you need is the blues. To me, the blues is the book, it's the bible, it's everything.

All you need in the world is love and laughter. That's all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other.

There's no reason why you can't say "August Wilson, playwright" even though all of my work, every single play, is about black Americans, about black American culture, about the black experience in America. I write about the black experience of men, or I write about black folks. That's who I am. In the same manner that Chekhov wrote about the Russians, I write about blacks. I couldn't do anything else. I wouldn't do anything else.

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

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.

For me, the original play becomes an historical document: This is where I was when I wrote it, and I have to move on now to something else.

What do you do with your legacy, and how do you best put it to use?