Walk in there. Tip my hat. Lay my money down on the table. Get my deed and walk on out. This time I get to keep all the cotton. Hire me some men to work it for me. Gin my cotton. Get my seed.

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

The way I see it, the stage tells the story for the ear, and the screen for the eye... On stage, you can't really control where the viewer's eye goes; there's a whole stage picture there, and the viewer can be looking anywhere. But with the camera, if you want the viewer to look at something in particular, you can put their eye there.

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.

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.

In 1980 I sent a play, 'Jitney,' to the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, won a Jerome Fellowship, and found myself sitting in a room with sixteen playwrights. I remember looking around and thinking that since I was sitting there, I must be a playwright, too.