When I first started writing plays I couldn't write good dialogue because I didn't respect how black people talked. I thought that in order to make art out of their dialogue I had to change it, make it into something different. Once I learned to value and respect my characters, I could really hear them. I let them start talking.
August WilsonI first got involved in theater in 1968, at the height of a social tumult. I was a poet.
August WilsonAll 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.
August WilsonI 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.
August Wilson