I ain't never found no place for me to fit. Seem like all I do is start over. It ain't nothing to find no starting place in the world. You just start from where you find yourself.

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.

If you want to support a writer, produce the first five plays he writes.

Freedom is heavy. You got to put your shoulder to freedom. Put your shoulder to it and hope your back holds up.

For me, the original play becomes an historical document: This is where I was when I wrote it, and I have to move on now to something else.

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.

The impulse to write the poem, that impulse is a great dramatic impulse. But hell, anybody could write a play. I do know this: all writers are not dramatists. You may be a great writer, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're a dramatist. Very few people have done both.