Quotes by August Wilson

About August Wilson:

August Wilson is set in a different decade, depicting the comic and tragic aspects of the African-American experience in the 20th century.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Jazz in itself is not struggling. That is, the music itself is not struggling... It's the attitude that's in trouble. My plays insist that we should not forget or toss away our history.

August Wilson

I started writing - I began my career at the age of 20, on April 1st, 1965, when... My sister was going to Fordham University at the time, and she wrote me and asked me if I'd write her a paper. She needed a paper on two poets. And I picked Robert Fr...

August Wilson

All art is political in the sense that it serves someone's politics.

August Wilson

From Borges, those wonderful gaucho stories from which I learned that you can be specific as to a time and place and culture and still have the work resonate with the universal themes of love, honor, duty, betrayal, etc. From Amiri Baraka, I learned ...

August Wilson

I don't look at our society today too much. My focus is still in the past, and part of the reason is because what I do - the wellspring of art, or what I do - l get from the blues. So I listen to the music of a particular period that I'm working on, ...

August Wilson

I been with strangers all day and they treated me like family. I come in here to family and you treat me like a stranger.

August Wilson

I once wrote a short story called 'The Best Blues Singer in the World,' and it went like this: 'The streets that Balboa walked were his own private ocean, and Balboa was drowning.' End of story. That says it all. Nothing else to say. I've been rewrit...

August Wilson

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

August Wilson

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

I don't write particularly to effect social change. I believe writing can do that, but that's not why I write.

August Wilson

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

August Wilson

In 1977, I wrote a series of poems about a character, Black Bart, a former cattle rustler-turned-alchemist. A good friend, Claude Purdy, who is a stage director, suggested I turn the poems into a play.

August Wilson

I'm a De Niro fan. I went eleven years without seeing a movie; the last one before that, February 1980, was De Niro and Scorsese in 'Raging Bull,' and when I went back, it was 'Cape Fear,' with De Niro and Scorsese. I picked up right where I left off...

August Wilson

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 ...

August Wilson

From Romare Bearden I learned that the fullness and richness of everyday life can be rendered without compromise or sentimentality.

August Wilson

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

I've never seen 'Seinfeld', never seen 'The Cosby Show'; I just don't watch it. I saw half of 'Oprah' one time. I'd rather read.

August Wilson

A novelist writes a novel, and people read it. But reading is a solitary act. While it may elicit a varied and personal response, the communal nature of the audience is like having five hundred people read your novel and respond to it at the same tim...

August Wilson

I've seen some terrible plays, but I generally enjoy myself. One play I walked out of, I have a tremendous respect for the author. That was Robert Wilson, something called 'Network,' which consisted of Wilson sitting on a bunk, the dialogue of the mo...

August Wilson

Between speeches and awards, you can find something to do every other week. It's hard to write. Your focus gets splintered. Once you put one thing in your calendar, that month is gone.

August Wilson

Author Bio

  • NameAugust Wilson
  • DescriptionAmerican playwright
  • BornApril 27, 1945
  • DiedOctober 2, 2005
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; Pulitzer Prize For Drama; National Humanities Medal