I think that's the core of black aesthetics: the ability to improvise. That is what has enabled our [black people's] survival.

All 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.

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.

As soon as white folks say a play's good, the theater is jammed with blacks and whites.

I first got involved in theater in 1968, at the height of a social tumult. I was a poet.

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

I think that's the core of black aesthetics: the ability to improvise. That is what has enabled our [black people's] survival.