“I didn't always value the ways black people talked. I thought, in orde...” — August Wilson Quote

“I didn't always value the ways black people talked. I thought, in order to make art out of it, you had to change it.”

“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 that all art is political, although I don't write political plays.”

“I do - very specifically, I remember Bessie Smith; I used to collect 78 records that I would buy from the St Vincent de Paul store at five cents apiece, and I did this indiscriminately. I would just take whatever was there. And I listened to Patti Page and Walter Huston, 'September Song.'”

“I found it really difficult when teachers talked down to me.”

“My peoples told me they thought I should go talk to a therapist, and I went and talked to a therapist, and we let Vice record it.”

“The more you are talked about the less powerful you are.”