197 Quotes by 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 at.

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.

When you look at a fellow, if you taught yourself to look for it, you can see his song written on him. Tell you what kind of man he is in the world.

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.

To my observation, the black middle class has failed to return the expertise and sophistication and resources that they've gained in American society over the past 50 years back to the community,

I had always been fascinated with Napoleon because he was a self-made emperor; Victor Hugo said, 'Napoleon's will to power,' and it was the title of my paper. And I submitted it to my teacher, and he didn't think I had written it. And he wanted me to explain it to him.

You have to make your own definition of yourself. That's crucial. When I do interviews, I am expected to become some sociologist. I have to speak to the condition of black America. My preference would be: Let's talk about theater. Let's talk about art. The fact that I am black is self-evident.

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

Blacks in America want to forget about slavery -- the stigma, the shame. That's the wrong move. If you can't be who you are, who can you be? How can you know what to do? We have our history. We have our book, which is the blues. And we forget it all.