Alice Childress
Alice Childress
Alice Childresswas an American playwright, actor, and author, acknowledged as "the only African-American woman to have written, produced, and published plays for four decades." Childress described her writing as trying to portray the have-nots in a have society, saying: "My writing attempts to interpret the 'ordinary' because they are not ordinary Each human is uniquely different. Like snowflakes, the human pattern is never cast twice. We are uncommonly and marvellously intricate in thought and action, our problems are most complex...
creative patterns
It becomes almost second nature to be on guard against the creative pattern of our own thought.
educational patterns snowflake
Like snowflakes, the human pattern is never cast twice.
patterns action problem
Like snowflakes, the human pattern is never cast twice. We are uncommonly and marvelously intricate in thought and action, our problems are most complex and, too often, silently borne.
thinking ideas accomplishment
Where did we get the idea of insultin' folks by pointin' out their age? ... It seems that we think youth is some special accomplishment brought about by the individual himself!
fighting men kind
It's a poor kind of man that won't fight for his own freedom.
anger mad water
I was so mad you could have boiled a pot of water on my head.
black sides events
And realizing there is no such thing as the Black experience. Time and events allow for change on both sides.
next looks look-up
That's how women are, always studyin' each other and wonderin' how they look up 'gainst the next.
winning order laughing
Writers are encouraged to "keep 'em laughing" and complain "with good humor" in order to "win" allies. The joke is always on ourselves.
ugly prejudice language
Zis and zat' when uttered by the French is considered charming, but 'dis and dat' as an Africanism is ridiculed as gross and ugly.
hurt pain real
Thoughts can hurt like real pain.
soul your-soul knows
your soul is an inner something that is another you and hardly anybody knows what it's really thinkin' except you.
hate writing twisted
The twisted circumstances under which we live is grist for the writing mill, the loving, hating and discovering, finding new handles for old pitchers . . .
heart soul gone
Everybody's got some sin, but if it troubles your heart you're a gentle sinner, just a good soul gone wrong.