Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.

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.

All of art is a search for ways of being, of living life more fully.

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

I believe in the American theatre. I believe in its power to inform about the human condition, its power to heal ... its power to uncover the truths we wrestle from uncertain and sometimes unyielding realities.

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

You are responsible for the world that you live in.