Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another. "

Related Quotes:

" Everybody gets everything handed to them. The rich inherit it. I don't mean just inheritance of money. I mean what people take for granted among the middle and upper classes, which is nepotism, the old-boy network. "

" She is a friend of mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It's good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind. "

" If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it. "

" The unflattering reviews are painful for short periods of time; the badly written ones are deeply, deeply insulting. That reviewer took no time to really read the book. "

" Black literature is taught as sociology, as tolerance, not as a serious, rigorous art form. "

" I'm not entangled in shaping my work according to other people's views of how I should have done it. "

" All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. "

" Women's rights is not only an abstraction, a cause; it is also a personal affair. It is not only about us; it is also about me and you. Just the two of us. "

" If you're going to hold someone down you're going to have to hold on by the other end of the chain. You are confined by your own repression. "

" Some Native American writers enjoy being called Native American writers. "

" Everywhere, everywhere, children are the scorned people of the earth. "

" There is nothing of any consequence in education, in the economy, in city planning, in social policy that does not concern black people. "

" Black people have always been used as a buffer in this country between powers to prevent class war. "

" In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate. "

" I'm always annoyed about why black people have to bear the brunt of everybody else's contempt. If we are not totally understanding and smiling, suddenly we're demons. "

" Black boys became criminalized. I was in constant dread for their lives, because they were targets everywhere. They still are. "

" There is really nothing more to say-except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how. "

" If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. "

" In becoming an American, from Europe, what one has in common with that other immigrant is contempt for me-it's nothing else but color. "

" Make a difference about something other than yourselves. "

Make A Difference

" I would solve a lot of literary problems just thinking about a character in the subway, where you can't do anything anyway. "

" No one ever talks about the moment you found that you were white. Or the moment you found out you were black. That's a profound revelation. The minute you find that out, something happens. You have to renegotiate everything. "

" As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think. "

" A lot of black people believe that Jews in this country have become white. They behave like white people rather than Jewish people. "

" Schools must stop being holding pens to keep energetic young people off the job market and off the streets. We stretch puberty out a long, long time. "

" The body is ready to have babies. Nature wants it done then, when the body can handle it, not after 40, when the income can handle it. "

" We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives. "

" Somebody has to take responsibility for being a leader. "

" At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. "

" If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, you must be the one to write it. "