Suzan-Lori Parks Quotes

#1. I love beautiful black-and-white movies - anything Bette Davis, especially 'Now', 'Voyager', 'Casablanca', 'Mildred Pierce'; anything by Orson Welles, Truffaut, or Godard; and 'Paper Moon' by Peter Bogdanovich.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#2. The plays should have the half-life of plutonium.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#3. I don't read reviews. I refuse to have my ego inflated or deflated by someone I don't know.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#4. Each moment is perfect and heaven-sent, in that each moment holds the seeds for growth.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#5. The first time I went over to [my director's] house, he said to me, This is a very strange play. I was pleased that he reminded me of that. [He] understands the play [VENUS] intellectually and emotionally and the humor, the funny bone.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#6. Quality is like quantity, but there's a lot less of it.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#7. My plays aren't stylistically the same. Just being an African-American woman playwright on Broadway is experimental.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#8. One could get locked in by the Pulitzer, thinking, 'This is who I am.' Doors open with it, but doors in your mind could close.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#9. Being a playwright of any race is difficult, and Lord knows it gets more difficult the further you get from the middle of the road. I don't know what kind of magic my mojo is working, but it's working.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#10. My plays are for the kind of black people who relate to funk music, to Parliament-Funkadelic. When those guys get out of a spaceship - the idea that black people are from outer space, there's a poetic truth to that. We are this vast people.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#11. I like to give and get basically anything (I love to read) but especially fiction and poetry.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#12. Every play I write is about love and distance. And time. And from that we can get things like history.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#13. Someone yelled at me once, 'You never write about yourself.' People used to get so mad at me for that. But my definition of myself is completely up for grabs. I'm everywhere, just like we all are.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#14. I don't consciously start writing a play that involves issues. After it's done, I sit back like everyone else and think about what it means.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#15. I don't care what anybody says. Stick to the spirit of the play and you're doing it right. It's about embracing the spirit of the text instead of noodling some idea about things.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#16. Difficulty creates the opportunity for self-reflection and compassion.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#17. My father was in the Army and we moved around a lot, and one of my favorite places was the library.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#18. I knew that I was learning one of the most important lessons of my life: that instead of waiting for the perfect opportunity, I should work toward a realization that every opportunity is perfect.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#19. I learned that if we embrace what's happening, we are also embracing what is possible - and a road opens up for God to meet us halfway.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#20. The writing of 'Topdog' was a great gift. I feel the play came to me because I realized that my circumstances, while causing me despair and heartbreak, also held great possibility, if only I could see it.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#21. you're only yourself when no ones watching!

Suzan-Lori Parks

#22. The writer has two kinds of faith: actual writing and sitting openly. Have faith in your personal effort or sweat. And faith in God, or whatever you want to call it. Then the voices will come. Faith is the big deal.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#23. And as you walk yr road, as you live yr life, RELISH THE ROAD. And relish the fact that the road of yr life will probably be a windy road.

Suzan-Lori Parks