When you fight something long enough, it becomes a center pole right in your life and you count on it to be there to fight with.

What's so good about a heaven where, one of these days, you're going to get your embarrassing old body back?

My view is that musicals are love stories with great final scenes. It's just that simple. Musicals are also conflicts between two worlds. And by those criteria, 'The Color Purple' is actually exactly the kind of story that makes for a great musical. Yes, it's got hard stuff in it, but so does 'Les Miserables' and 'Phantom of the Opera.'

If I had not had music in my life, I would be the neurasthenic vision of the playwright.

Family is just accident.... They don't mean to get on your nerves. They don't even mean to be your family, they just are.

Music expresses longing and love and joy better than any piece of dialogue you can ever write.

on the whole the American theater, dominated by men, does not perceive women fighting for their lives as a central issue.