Your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel.
August WilsonRead
You got to take the crookeds with the straights. That's what Papa used to say.
Interpretation
Life consists of both good and bad experiences, and one must accept both.
This quote by August Wilson emphasizes the inevitability of facing both challenges and triumphs in life. It suggests that acceptance of life's ups and downs, as passed down by a paternal figure, is essential for personal resilience and understanding of the human experience.
In practice
In a motivational speech about facing difficulties in life.
Your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel.
I think the blues is the best literature that we as blacks have created since we've been here. I call it our 'sacred book.' What I've attempted to do is to mine that field, to mine those cultural ideas and attitudes and give them to my characters.
All you need in the world is love and laughter. That's all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other.
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 know some things when I start. I know, let's say, that the play is going to be a 1970s or a 1930s play, and it's going to be about a piano, but that's it. I slowly discover who the characters are as I go along.
When I first started writing plays I couldn't write good dialogue because I didn't respect how black people talked. I thought that in order to make art out of their dialogue I had to change it, make it into something different. Once I learned to value and respect my characters, I could really hear them. I let them start talking.
We can't plan life. All we can do is be available for it.
Sometimes I go, βWhat am I doing with my life?β But then I get letters from young women, or people come up to me, and they say, βYouβve made such a difference to my confidence.β And that is a good thing. I should read more fan mail though. Iβm crap at responding.
I'm telling you, if aliens landed on earth today and took a good hard look at why babies get born, they'd conclude that most people had children by accident, or because they drink too much on a certain night, or because birth control isn't one hundred percent, or for a thousand other reasons that really aren't very flattering.
I've observed over and over that people seem to get a much deeper sense of fulfillment out of something they've done as an act of service than out of the things they do for themselves.
Every child begins the world again, to some extent, and loves to stay outdoors, even in wet and cold. It plays house, as well as horse, having an instinct for it...At last we know not what it is to live in the open air, and our lives are domestic in more senses than we think.
but then she did. she died. no more visits, no more phone calls. And without even realizing it, I began to drift, as if my roots had been pulled, as if I were floating down some side branch of a river.
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