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

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.

I found out life's hard but it ain't impossible.

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.

I may be personable, but I assure you I am a lion.

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. In other words, we simply need to know who we are in relation to our historical presence in America.

There's no idea in the world that is not contained by black life. I could write forever about the black experience in America.