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. . . what happened, of course, was that I was writing a play set in the 1940's that was supposed to be somehow representative of black American life, and I didn't have any women in there. And I knew that wasn't going to work.

August Wilson

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August Wilson
Age: 60 †
Born: 1945
Born: April 27
Died: 2005
Died: October 2
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
Pittsburg
Pennsylvania
Frederick August Kittel
Frederick August Kittel
Jr.
August Kittel
Didn
Supposed
Women
Wasn
Play
Knew
Writing
Courses
Going
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Representative
Work
Happened
Representatives
Life
American
Crafts
Black
Somehow

More quotes by August Wilson

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I found out life's hard but it ain't impossible.
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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
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I done learned my mistake and learned to do what's right by it. You still trying to get something for nothing. Life don't owe you nothing. You owe it to yourself. - Troy -
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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
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All of art is a search for ways of being, of living life more fully.
August Wilson
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I think that as a playwright, if I detail that environment, then I'm taking away something from them [designers]. I'm taking away their creativity and their ability to have input themselves, not just to follow what the playwright has written. So I do a minimum set description and let the designers create within that.
August Wilson
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What do you do with your legacy, and how do you best put it to use?
August Wilson
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Your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel.
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You got to be right with yourself before you can be right with anybody else.
August Wilson
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All art is political in the sense that it serves someone's politics.
August Wilson
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I work as an artist, and I think the audience of one, which is the self, and I have to satisfy myself as an artist. So I always say that I write for the same people that Picasso painted for. I think he painted for himself.
August Wilson
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I first got involved in theater in 1968, at the height of a social tumult. I was a poet.
August Wilson
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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 time. I find that thrilling.
August Wilson
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So somehow, things that seem extraneous to the play in reality are not. The scene lasts 37 minutes, and you only need 12 minutes of that for the plot. But if you pull the rest of it out, it's not my play.
August Wilson
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Life don't owe you nothing.
August Wilson
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I don't write for a particular audience.
August Wilson
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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
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I cried a river of tears but he was too heavy to float on them. So I dragged him with me these years across an ocean.
August Wilson
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I dont write particularly to effect social change. I believe writing can do that, but thats not why I write.
August Wilson
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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