My influences have been what I call my four Bs - the primary one being the blues, then Borges, Baraka, and Bearden.

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

You are responsible for the world that you live in. It is not government's responsibility. It is not your school's or your social club's or your church's or your neighbor's or your fellow citizen's. It is yours, utterly and singularly yours.

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

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

For me, the original play becomes an historical document: This is where I was when I wrote it, and I have to move on now to something else.

Jazz in itself is not struggling. That is, the music itself is not struggling... It's the attitude that's in trouble. My plays insist that we should not forget or toss away our history.