Suzan-Lori Parks quotes

Every play I write is about love and distance. And time. And from that we can get things like history. (Suzan-Lori Parks)

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

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

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

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

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

you're only yourself when no ones watching!

Suzan-Lori Parks

I am the white woman character, black woman character. I am the black man character, the white man character...I have to stand in that person's shoes.

Suzan-Lori Parks

Black people have had to become great at seeing ourselves where we are not present because that's where we grew up. I see myself in Downton Abbey. Even before they introduced the black character, I was right there. Some weeks I was upstairs, some weeks I was downstairs! But it is different when you have a character who looks like you, so I'm glad to have plugged that gap a little bit.

Suzan-Lori Parks

At that time the army had just been integrated in the States. And it was one of the few industries that offered black people the possibility of advancement if you did a good job. Most industries didn't have that then: you were the last hired and the first fired. He was in Vietnam and we were sitting waiting, and we were luckier than some because he was able to come home and live a pretty good life.

Suzan-Lori Parks

Difficulty creates the opportunity for self-reflection and compassion. (Suzan-Lori Parks)

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

Suzan-Lori Parks

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

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

Suzan-Lori Parks

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