Black Writers Quotes

There is plenty of work that needs to be done by men to dismantle patriarchy ~ Malebo Sephodi

Through Miss Behave I am attempting to reclaim my voice one word at a time and live my truth to the best of my ability ~ Malebo Sephodi

I do think it's important for black writers to show that we too can make it into the mainstream. Growing up, I didn't just watch The Cosby Show, I watched Growing Pains and Family Ties too. We can tell those stories too. ~ Lena Waithe

Reinvent yourself over and over and over and over and over until you find home. There is no timeline for the soul. ~ Malebo Sephodi

We don't want to create a literary ghetto in which black writers are only allowed to write black characters and women writers are put on 'girl books.' ~ G. Willow Wilson

There's an inherent idea that if a Black executive producer and a Black director are going to do a movie based on a Black writer's book that everybody is going to be Black. ~ Gabrielle Union

I want to live in a society where we are all liberated. This is what my feminism looks like ~ Malebo Sephodi

I always crave to see more stories about and by people of color, particularly new work by young black writers. ~ Katori Hall

Are you kidding me?' Shan asked, slightly drunk, slightly dramatic, and now sitting yoga style on the floor. 'You can't write an honest novel about race in this country. If you write about how people are really affected by race, it'll be too obvious. Black writers who do literary fiction in this country, all three of them, not the ten thousand who write those bullshit ghetto books with the bright covers, have two choices: they can do precious or they can do pretentious. When you do neither, nobody knows what to do with you. So if you're going to write about race, you have to make sure it's so lyrical and subtle that the reader who doesn't read between the lines won't even know it's about race ... ' p.335 ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.
They hear the first and last of every Tree
Speak to humankind today. Come to me, here beside the River.
Plant yourself beside the River. ~ Maya Angelou

In 1967, the students at San Francisco State invited the poet Amiri Baraka to the campus for a semester. He attracted other influential black writers such as Sonia Sanchez, Ed Bullins, Eldridge Cleaver. What emerged was something we called the community communications program. That's how I got involved; I got involved in a little play. ~ Danny Glover

Many theaters are tackling the multifaceted work of black writers - established and emerging. Now the next step is for them to bring in audiences of color and continue to go out to our community and create a continuous connection that extends beyond the one black show in the season. ~ Katori Hall

THEY STOLE YOUR STYLE
BUT THEY COULDN'T STEAL
YOUR GLOW ~ Qwana M. Reynolds-Frasier

Had middle class black women begun a movement in which they had labeled themselves "oppressed," no one would have taken them seriously. ~ Bell Hooks

I am admiring of my fellow peers, black filmmakers and black actors and actresses. ~ Cuba Gooding, Jr.

You didn't know whether Chuck Berry was black or white - it was not a concern. ~ Keith Richards

Graff was floating on his back in the pool when George Wall and I went outside. His brown belly swelled above its surface like the humpback of a Galapagos tortoise. Mrs. Graff, fully clothed, was sitting by herself in a sunny corner. Her black dress and black hair seemed to annul the sunlight. Her face and body had the distinction that takes the place of beauty in people who have suffered long and hard. ~ Ross Macdonald

He just never understood how white people could be racist in South Africa. "Africa is full of black people," he would say. "So why would you come all the way to Africa if you hate black people? If you hate black people so much, why did you move into their house?" To him it was insane. Because ~ Trevor Noah

What do you think he did to me to deserve to die?" I ask.

He stokes the fire. Sparks fly up. "I assumed he broke your heart. An eye for an eye, a heart for a heart. ~ Holly Black

When we excuse homophobia as a matter of opinion instead of treating it as a destructive social illness, we invite fear to explode into violence ... If we are ever to scrape the black rot of prejudice from the heart of our nation, we must stop excusing those who give it expression and even excuse. The next time someone dares to say, "Just because I don't approve of homosexuality doesn't make me a bigot," we must all answer back, "Yes, it does. Not only does it make you a bigot, it makes you a criminal, a danger to me, my family, my community, my city, and my country. ~ Harvey Fierstein

Black people have this thing about calling themselves apes and monkeys I know they get real (whatever) and I don't blame em'. But I feel like I'm a brute. I am, but I'm smart though. I'm not a dummy. ~ Sean Price

Faeries…?" I ask.

"Yes, yes." He sounds impatient. "The Folk of the Air. Insubstantial, unable to hold one shape. Like the seeds of flowers launched into the sky. ~ Holly Black

I do not need to hear people tearing into Lisa Lampanelli for liking to have sex only with black men. I'm sad that this is her famous running gag. I'm sad that I now know this. I'm sad that a legitimate rung on the ladder of making it in comedy is writing hateful stuff about total strangers. I don't know. ~ Mindy Kaling

I sha'n't let my prisoners go as easily as all that!' she said. 'Make my hair grow as thick and as black as yours, or else your husbands shall never see daylight again.' 'That is quite simple,' replied the elder sister; 'only you must do as we did - and perhaps you won't like the treatment.' 'If you can bear it, of course I can,' answered the witch. And so the girls told her they had first smeared their heads with pitch and then laid hot stones upon them. 'It is very painful,' said they, 'but there is no other way that we know of. And in order to make sure that all will go right, one of us will hold you down while the other pours on the pitch.' And so they did; and the elder sister let down her hair till it hung over the witch's eyes, so that she might believe it was her own hair growing. Then the other brought a huge stone, and, in short, there was an end of the witch. The sisters were savages who had never seen a missionary. ~ Andrew Lang

Many novice writers, students in particular, think that writing is little more than copying down their self-talk, the palaver of the voices they hear in their heads. Of course, self-talk is thinking, and writing begins with thinking. ~ Richard Rhodes

Is that what depression is about-the sinking feeling that your connection to God is broken and you are left to float on your own in a liquid black space, like an astronaut who has been cut loose from his spaceship and all that linked him to Earth? ~ Elif Shafak

I guess the important thing for young writers is to read. ~ Paul Auster

And I know, I'm sitting here next to my white best friend but it's almost as if I giving Khalil, Daddy, Seven, and every other black guy in my life a big, loud "fuck you" by having a white boyfriend. ~ Angie Thomas

The last man on the moon, Gene Cernan, had paused for a final look at the black beauty of the world about him. He had a message to send home before departing. "As I take these last steps from the surface for some time in the future to come, I'd just like to record that America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And as we leave the moon and Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came, and, God willing, we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind." It's been nearly four decades since he spoke those words. No American, no earth being has yet returned to the moon. Sadly, no one will again for decades to come. ~ Alan Shepard

Witch-heart, are you gold or black? ~ Amy Lowell

Good writers show rather than tell. Stories are told in action. Life stories are no different. ~ Donald Miller

Scurvy became a problem. This disease comes from a deficiency of vitamin C, and it causes the victim's connective tissue to break down. The Irish called scurvy black leg, because it made the blood vessels under the skin burst, giving a victim's limbs a black appearance. The cure for scurvy is fresh food - meat, vegetables, or fruit - none of which was available to the poor in Ireland. There ~ Ryan Hackney

We might think of dollars as being 'certificates of performance.' The better I serve my fellow man, and the higher the value he places on that service, the more certificates of performance he gives me. The more certificates I earn, the greater my claim on the goods my fellow man produces. That's the morality of the market. In order for one to have a claim on what his fellow man produces, he must first serve him. ~ Walter E. Williams

God, listen to him. Fucking pathetic, going on about the girl like he was Keats or something. ~ Shayla Black

Crazy frustration, about my lovin situation;
When patience was a virtue ... but I wasn't used to waitin. ~ Black Thought

She was wearing a simple silver sheath cut within an inch of indecency, curving round her slender shoulders and then falling away to expose the smooth white skin of her back and just a hint of the soft round curve of her breasts. She had on no jewellery, only a pale wash of lipstick, and again the black halo of hair was arranged so that it looked almost wind tossed. Yet her dark tresses shone, framing her face with a soft, unearthly light. Next to the other women at the table, with their diamonds, heavy strands of pearls, and meticulously groomed faces and hair, she seemed feral and bewitching. The impact of her beauty lay in her confidence and her utter lack of self-awareness. In contrast, others appeared to be trying too hard, careful and staid. ~ Kathleen Tessaro

I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy. ~ Nikki Giovanni

A writer's job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as memories. ~ John Irving

The goal, I suppose, any fiction writer has, no matter what your subject, is to hit the human heart and the tear ducts and the nape of the neck and to make a person feel something about the characters are going through and to experience the moral paradoxes and struggles of being human. ~ Tim O'Brien

I always feel that young doctors are only too anxious too experiment. After they've whipped out all our teeth, and administered quantities of very peculiar glands, and removed bits of our insides, they then confess that nothing can be done for us. I really prefer the old-fashioned remedy of big black bottles of medicine. After all, one can always pour those down the sink. ~ Agatha Christie

In the space of less than seven days, I attended a track meet in Boston, flew from there to Bowling Green for the National Jaycees, then to Rochester for the blind, Buffalo for another track meet, New York to shoot a film called The Black Athlete, Miami for Ford Motor Company, back up to New York for 45 minutes to deliver a speech, then into L. A. for another the same night. ~ Jesse Owens

I'm bookbrained-the act of book obsession common in writers. Not to be confused with bookbrains, a delicacy for zombies when eating the former. ~ Zara Steen

She has never messed up a single take yet. Recently I was in a scene and there was a table covered with a cloth. When the director said cut, I saw a black nose and two paws inching out from under the cloth. She had hidden there without making a sound until we were done with the scene. She wanted to be nearer to me. ~ Jack Lemmon

There are so many ways to be and to be black at the same time, but we're finally seeing that full range expressed much more widely than before. ~ Baratunde Thurston