I'm trying to take culture and put it onstage, demonstrate it is capable of sustaining you. There is no idea that can't be contained by life: Asian life, European life, certainly black life. My plays are about love, honor, duty, betrayal - things humans have written about since the beginning of time.

August Wilson

Categorized in : Ideas Play Betrayal

I believe in the American theatre. I believe in its power to inform about the human condition, its power to heal ... its power to uncover the truths we wrestle from uncertain and sometimes unyielding realities.

August Wilson

theatre believe reality

Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.

August Wilson

forgiveness strength inspirational

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.

August Wilson

government responsibility school

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

August Wilson

hard found impossible

Have a belief in yourself that is bigger than anyone's disbelief.

August Wilson

disbelief bigger belief

Blues is the bedrock of everything I do. All the characters in my plays, their ideas and their attitudes, the stance that they adopt in the world, are all ideas and attitudes that are expressed in the blues.

August Wilson

play attitude character

I write for myself and my goal is bringing that world and that experience of black Americans to life on the stage and giving it a space there.

August Wilson

space writing giving

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.

August Wilson

laughter happiness hands

I 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

order past thinking

All of art is a search for ways of being, of living life more fully.

August Wilson

live-life way art

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 Wilson

writing character art

I think the play offers (white Americans) a different way to look at black Americans For instance, in 'Fences' they see a garbageman, a person they don't really look at, although they see a garbageman every day. By looking at Troy's life, white people find out that the content of this black garbageman's life is affected by the same things- love, honor, beauty, betrayal, duty. Recognizing that these things are as much part of his life as theirs can affect how they think about and deal with black people in their lives.

August Wilson

betrayal play thinking

The simpler you say it, the more eloquent it is.

August Wilson

eloquent editing writing

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

August Wilson

shoulders heavy

Your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel.

August Wilson

pain angel strength

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

August Wilson

lions may

You get to the point where your demons, which are terrifying, get smaller and smaller and you get bigger and bigger.

August Wilson

demon bigger

You got to be right with yourself before you can be right with anybody else.

August Wilson

I am not a historian. I happen to think that the content of my mother's life - her myths, her superstitions, her prayers, the contents of her pantry, the smell of her kitchen, the song that escaped from her sometimes parched lips, her thoughtful repose and pregnant laughter - are all worthy of art.

August Wilson

mother song art

There's no reason why you can't say "August Wilson, playwright" even though all of my work, every single play, is about black Americans, about black American culture, about the black experience in America. I write about the black experience of men, or I write about black folks. That's who I am. In the same manner that Chekhov wrote about the Russians, I write about blacks. I couldn't do anything else. I wouldn't do anything else.

August Wilson

who-i-am writing men