Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" There isn't a dude outside my dad who had greater influence on my life. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
My Life
Dude
Influence
Related Quotes:
" To Trump, whiteness is neither notional nor symbolic but the very core of his power. In this, Trump is not singular. But whereas his forebears carried whiteness like an ancestral talisman, Trump cracked the glowing amulet open, releasing its eldritch energies. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Open
Core
Glowing
" The casualties in the Civil War amount to more than all other wars - all other American wars combined. More people died in that war than World War II, World War I, Vietnam, etc. And that was a war for white supremacy. It was a war to erect a state in which the basis of it was the enslavement of black people. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
World
American
Black
" There's no way to understand housing as it exists today without federal policy. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Way
Policy
Understand
" In comics, you have to imagine what happens. I really loved it; I loved collecting. I loved following the adventures and figuring out what was going to happen next. I was a huge X-Men fan; I was a huge Spider-Man fan, and, to large degree, I remain one. It's literature for me; it's art. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Me
Art
Imagine
" We've got in the habit of not really understanding how freedom was in the 19th century, the idea of government of the people in the 19th century. America commits itself to that in theory. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Got
Freedom
Government
" You don't actually have control of the position people want you to be in. If they say, 'You king of the blacks,' you're king of the blacks - whether you like it or not. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Want
You
Say
" The soul is part of the body. The mind is part of the body. When folks do physical violence to black people, to black bodies in this country, the soul as we construe it is damaged, too - the mind is damaged, too. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Mind
Body
People
" It is often said that Trump has no real ideology, which is not true - his ideology is white supremacy, in all its truculent and sanctimonious power. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
White
Ideology
Power
" I have never read 'To Kill A Mockingbird.' "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Mockingbird
Read
Never
" African Americans are one of the oldest ethnic groups in this country. We been here since the beginning. Before the beginning. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Country
Beginning
Here
" As a writer, I was shaped by a desire to write for black people. That things were not being represented. That was my motivating force. That it has become what it has become is shocking to me. I just wanted to be able to take care of my kids. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
People
Take Care
Black
" White supremacy is a very, very popular and trenchant belief in this country's history and heritage. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
History
White
Very
" When you know that people know who you are, you are always working - and not the work you want to do. You are sort of performing, because you know they are looking - or at least glancing - at you. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Want
Work
You
" One of the things that's really, really present in 'Between the World and Me' is, I am in some ways outside of the African-American tradition. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Tradition
Present
Me
" When you write, you're inside the project. You can't really think about the reception. It has to be worth it even if no one reads it. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Worth It
Project
Worth
" Racism is a physical experience. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Physical
Experience
Racism
" I write what I write in the way that I write it. I'm not being abstract, you know. I'm talking about something that, you know, is a part of my life. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
You
Know
Life
" I was born in West Baltimore, lived in a situation in which violence was everywhere. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Violence
Situation
Born
" Amiri Baraka went to Howard. Lucille Clifton went to Howard. Ossie Davis went to Howard. And I was aware of that when I was there. Charles Drew went to Howard. Thurgood Marshall went to the law school. Being aware of that and having all of that brought to bear, again, it's one of those things that I can't really separate from my career as a writer. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Bear
Career
Law
" My belief is in the chaos of the world and that you have to find your peace within the chaos and that you still have to find some sort of mission. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
World
Mission
Find
" Every writer dreams of having the ability to hold forth for 8,000 words and pull all these different forms together: history, reportage, journalism. That was all I really wanted, and 'The Atlantic' was my first high-profile opportunity. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Together
Dreams
History
" American myths have never been colorless. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
American
Myths
Never
" The president of the United States is not a king. You know? Barack Obama was elected by the American people. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
King
American
People
" Redlining went beyond FHA-backed loans and spread to the entire mortgage industry, which was already rife with racism, excluding black people from most legitimate means of obtaining a mortgage. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Beyond
Racism
Mortgage
" Outside of hip-hop, it was in comics that I most often found the aesthetics and wisdom of my world reflected. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Hip-Hop
Outside
Wisdom
" I'm a writer. My job is to speak what - that which I think is true. If that bridges the gap, that's good. If it doesn't, that's too bad. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Think
Speak
Job
" It is said that Obama speaks 'professorially,' a fact that understates the quickness and agility of his mind. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Fact
Quickness
Said
" Donald Trump did not appear by magic. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Magic
Appear
Did
" Eddie Conway is central to my first memories. My parents used to take me to, when it was open, the Baltimore city penitentiary to see Eddie Conway - I was talking to my dad about this recently - from the time I might have been one or two years old. I mean, literally, my first memories are of black men in jail, specifically of Eddie Conway. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Men
Parents
Time
" Abraham Lincoln was killed by the forces of white supremacy. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Forces
Abraham
White