Booker Quotes

I've heard people, usually writers, say that no one wrote a great book after winning the Booker, but I honestly did not feel any big pressure. 'The Gathering' did hang over me in that it was darker than I thought at the time. ~ Anne Enright

We are all innovators, we all like to use our imagination, which is our greatest tool. ~ Cory Booker

We must reinforce argument with results. ~ Booker T. Washington

We're a nation of hope, of high ideals. ~ Cory Booker

Too often the educational value of doing well what is done, however little, is overlooked. One thing well done prepares the mind to do the next thing better. Not how much, but how well, should be the motto. One problem thoroughly understood is of more value than a score poorly mastered. ~ Booker T. Washington

I believe that living life with a definiteness of purpose, with having a central focus, is essential to success. ~ Cory Booker

In later years, I confess that I do not envy the white boy as I once did. I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. Looked at from this standpoint, I almost reach the conclusion that often the Negro boy's birth and connection with an unpopular race is an advantage, so far as real life is concerned. With few exceptions, the Negro youth must work harder and must perform his tasks even better than a white youth in order to secure recognition. But out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race. ~ Booker T. Washington

In proportion as one renders service he becomes great. ~ Booker T. Washington

Thirty-one days later, in the summer of 1981, he became a full-time writer, and the feeling of liberation as he left the agency for the last time was heady and exhilarating. He shed advertising like an unwanted skin, though he continued to take a sneaky pride in his bestknown slogan, "Naughty but nice" (created for the Fresh Cream Cake Client), and in his "bubble words" campaign for Aero chocolate (IRRESISTIBUBBLE, DELECTABUBBLE, ADORABUBBLE, the billboards cried, and bus sides read TRANSPORTABUBBLE, trade advertising said PROFITABUBBLE, and storefront decals proclaimed AVAILABUBBLE HERE). Later that year, when Midnight's Children was awarded the Booker Prize, the first telegram he received - there were these communications called "telegrams" in those days - was from his formerly puzzled boss. "Congratulations," it read. "One of us made it. ~ Salman Rushdie

If no other consideration had convinced me of the value of the Christian life, the Christ like work which the Church of all denominations in America has done during the last 35 years for the elevation of the black man would have made me a Christian. ~ Booker T. Washington

No man, who continues to add something to the material, intellectual and moral well-being of the place in which he lives, is left long without proper reward. ~ Booker T. Washington

You have to understand the Newark Riots - a lot of people understand that the pain was the initial explosion of anger and alienation, but after that, the response, sending the National Guard troops - a lot of violence was carried out and perpetrated by those who were allegedly coming here to protect residents. ~ Cory Booker

As a guy that had been told to drop out many times as I was coming up, I don't think you should tell any candidate about what they should do and what decisions they should make. ~ Cory Booker

Cities can be places that represent the best of our ideals: where Americans of all different backgrounds can come together and, through their interactions, and even through their unity, spawn true American greatness. ~ Cory Booker

I want to be myself. I want to be as authentic as possible. ~ Cory Booker

In America, our differences matter, but our country matters more. That's the attitude I wanted to take to the Senate. ~ Cory Booker

I love talking about the challenges [Newark, NJ] has because of the way they are always brilliantly disguised as opportunities..the biggest global challenge that there is is a challenge of the spirit, a challenge of our vision, a challenge and a test of our ideals, of who we SAY we are GOING TO BE. ~ Cory Booker

The time will come when the Negro in the South will be accorded all the political rights which his ability, character, and material possessions entitle him to. ~ Booker T. Washington

I'm not defending what Cory Booker said. I'm saying I understand why he has to kiss the asses of the rich people on Wall Street, because there's no other way to keep his city afloat. ~ Bill Maher

This November, with the re-election of President Barack Obama, this generation of Americans will ever expand upon the hope, the truth and the promise of America. ~ Cory Booker

There is no escape - man drags man down, or man lifts man up. ~ Booker T. Washington

The only thing that weakens worry is work, so I will be working for Marie Corfield ~ Cory Booker

My weakness in life is two men who seduce me all the time - named Ben & Jerry. ~ Cory Booker

The longer I live and the more experience I have of the world, the more I am convinced that, after all, the one thing that is most worth living for-and dying for, if need be-is the opportunity of making someone else more happy. ~ Booker T. Washington

Never let your soul be silenced. Live life out loud. Every day tell your truth not with words but with actions from your heart. ~ Cory Booker

Education is not what a person is able to hold in his head, so much as it is what a person is able to find.I ~ Booker T. Washington

The opening line of her last column was: You know you really don't fit in with the other housewives you meet when the only way you can contribute to a discussion about babies is by saying, "Yes, that's what my mother used to do." It went on to talk about how a woman could climb Everest, teach schoolchildren in Cambodia and win the Booker Prize but some people would still think she had good news only when she produced progeny. ~ Shweta Ganesh Kumar

The Booker thing was a catalyst for me in a bizarre way. It's perceived as an accolade to be published as a 'literary' writer, but, actually, it's pompous and it's fake. Literary fiction is often nothing more than a genre in itself. I'd always read omnivorously and often thought much literary fiction is read by young men and women in their 20s, as substitutes for experience. ~ Neil Cross

In the end, it is up to us to instruct, inspire, and encourage one another by what we do and how we live. We must all, in this sense, be activists. If we want more connection, we must work harder to connect with others. If we want more unity, we must work to be uniters. If we want more leadership, then we must lead. The most profound changes in our country have come when individuals joined with other individuals in the stubborn belief that they could make change. ~ Cory Booker

Oh dear me, the Booker people don't like me. I don't care. I have been given an award for being taken not seriously, and I am very, very pleased about that. ~ Terry Pratchett

The white man who begins by cheating a Negro usually ends by cheating a white man. The white man who begins to break the law by lynching a Negro soon yields to the temptation to lynch a white man. ~ Booker T. Washington

My simple point is that I judge a person's faith by how they live their life, not by the tenets of their religion. I've watched the holiest of people walk past somebody in need or treat their staff mean. To me, the beauty of faith is only seen when people live it consistently or struggle to do so. ~ Cory Booker

There's too much judgment out there. Really what we need to be doing is just all of us finding our own paths towards living the best lives we can live as clearly and boldly in accordance with our own personal values. And that's what I'm trying to do. ~ Cory Booker

The majority of our criminals that we lock up are non-violent offenders. ~ Cory Booker

In Australia, the Man Booker is sometimes seen as something of a chicken raffle. ~ Richard Flanagan

One of the very hallmarks of our nation is the ideal of E Pluribus Unum. It is a concept that richly flows from the highest ideals of our nation. ~ Cory Booker

I'm a person that's grounded in faith and believe that my core values, motivation, inspiration, draw from a conception of the world in that way. ~ Cory Booker

Tolerance says I am just going to stomach your right to be different. That if you disappear from the face of the earth, I am no better or worse off. But love - love knows that every American has worth and value, no matter what their background, race, religion, or sexual orientation. ~ Cory Booker

My experience is that people who call themselves "The Intellectuals" understand theories, but they do not understand things. I have long been convinced that, if these men could have gone into the South and taken up and become interested in some practical work which would have brought them in touch with people and things, the whole world would have looked very different to them. Bad as conditions might have seemed at first, when they saw that actual progress was being made, they would have taken a more hopeful view of the situation. ~ Booker T. Washington

But my family also insisted that personal ethic must be seamlessly bound with a larger communal ethic, a sense of connectedness: a recognition that we are all a part of something and have reaped the benefits of the struggles waged by those who had an unwavering commitment to the common good. ~ Cory Booker

I note that warmists are often banging on about the fact that sceptics like Christopher Booker and myself 'only' have arts degrees. But actually that's our strength, not our weakness. Our intellectual training qualifies us better than any scientist - social or natural sciences - for us to understand that this is, au fond, not a scientific debate but a cultural and rhetorical one. ~ James Delingpole

Success always leaves footprints. ~ Booker T. Washington

As I review the great history of our nation, community organizers have been at the center of so many of our great social movements. ~ Cory Booker

My sister is an opera singer. I grew up going to her recitals. This whole time, I'm like, 'She's the singer. I'm just strumming along and yelling.' ~ Benjamin Booker

Heroism is rarely the loud, world-saving stuff of the movies. Often it's just having the courage not to give up; it's being persistently kind amidst persistent indifference; it's holding on to hope when cynicism abounds; and it's every day choosing love even though every day you encounter so much ignorance and hate."
- Corey Booker ~ Corey Booker

More than anything, we must do better for our children's education. ~ Cory Booker

You may fill your heads with knowledge or skillfully train your hands, but unless it is based upon high, upright character, upon a true heart, it will amount to nothing. You will be no better than the most ignorant. ~ Booker T. Washington

Today we ought to be able to see first that Booker T. Washington faced a situation in which he was seeking desperately for a way out, and he could see no way out except capitulation. ~ C.L.R. James

Courage has you say in a defiant spirit you can take everything from me, you could cut me deep, you could render me in shame but you will never ever stop me from loving those who mock me, from loving those that hate me, from loving those who don't forgive me, from loving the cynics, from loving the darkness so much that I myself through my small acts of consistent unyielding love may bring on the light. ~ Cory Booker

If we are going to do big things in our country, we're going to have to think about better ways working across our differences. ~ Cory Booker

Character, not circumstance, makes the person. ~ Booker T. Washington

Give more than is expected, love more than seems wise, serve more than seems necessary, and help more than is asked. ~ Cory Booker

These false barriers that we've erected of space and race, all these illusions that we've allowed to infect us like toxins, we've got to rid ourselves of that. We are a better nation when we are ultimately united in a common purpose and a common cause. ~ Cory Booker

The time after college and before music was really rough. I couldn't afford food. I was eating bread and butter for five months. Living in New Orleans, I couldn't afford to take care of myself. I had no health insurance. ~ Benjamin Booker

I was born after the Civil Rights Movement. I never saw Martin Luther King alive. ~ Cory Booker

Dignify and glorify common labor. It is at the bottom of life that we must begin, not at the top. ~ Booker T. Washington

To you, to the scarred and scattered remnants of the Fifty-fourth, who, with empty sleeve and wanting leg, have honoured this occasion with your presence, to you, your commander is not dead. Though Boston erected no monument and history recorded no story, in you and in the loyal race which you represent, Robert Gould Shaw would have a monument which time could not wear away, ~ Booker T. Washington

As you put your sights on your goals - no matter how great and compelling they are - as you look into the distance, don't forget what is right in front of you today. No matter how great your dreams, no matter how great your destiny, the biggest thing you can do in any day is a small act of kindness. ~ Cory Booker

The older I grow, the more I am convinced that there is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women. ~ Booker T. Washington

No white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until he wears the white man's clothes, eats the white man's food, speaks the white man's language, and professes the white man's religion. ~ Booker T. Washington

Two of the great leaders of the past - Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass - had White fathers - who deserted them. Now Margo Jefferson, who is hard on me and the fellas, wrote in the Times that she has nocturnal, erotic fantasies about John Wayne. What's up with these feminists? Do you see these double standards these feminists have? They dream about John Wayne, but they're hard on us [Black men]. ~ Ishmael Reed

Our nation was founded with a bunch of founding legislators who joined together to move our country out of the blocks and get us started, and every generation since then has found a way to advance the ball down the field. ~ Cory Booker

Leaders have devoted themselves to politics, little knowing, it seems
that political independence disappears without economic independence
that economic independence is the foundation of political independence. ~ Booker T. Washington

Political activity alone cannot make a man free. Back of the ballot, he must have property, industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character. ~ Booker T. Washington

In a word, the Negro youth starts out with the presumption against him. ~ Booker T. Washington

Frederick Douglass, of sainted memory, once, in addressing his race, used these words: "We are to prove that we can better our own condition. One way to do this is to accumulate property. This may sound to you like a new gospel. You have been accustomed to hear that money is the root of all evil, etc. On the other hand, property - money, if you please - will purchase for us the only condition by which any people can rise to the dignity of genuine manhood; for without property there can be no leisure, without leisure there can be no thought, without thought there can be no invention, without invention there can be no progress. ~ Booker T. Washington

It may be the first in what I trust will be a rapidly growing and influential genre
the novel designed on purpose to be excludedfrom the Booker short-list. ~ Angela Carter

Before you speak to me about your religion, first show it to me in how you treat other people. Before you tell me how much you love your God, show me in how much you love all His children. ~ Cory Booker

No one can degrade us except ourselves. ~ Booker T. Washington

Jazz should be much less about stress on technical exhibitionism and much more on emotional content. ~ Booker Little

If we want a great nation, we have to change it ourselves. ~ Cory Booker

Hope is the active conviction that despair will never have the last word. ~ Cory Booker

Small Faces were really a soul band as far as we were concerned. That's what we listened to; that's what we played, you know? We were pretty much based on Booker T. and the M.G.'s. ~ Ian McLagan

There's an image that some of us have of Jackie Onassis, stepping out in the rain, and Maurice Tempelsman is holding her umbrella. We want that man. We want the man to be the concierge and the masseur and the travel booker. ~ Sandra Tsing Loh

If I just retweet the nice things, it rings hollow after a while. ~ Cory Booker

To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say 'Cast down your bucket where you are.' ~ Booker T. Washington

Heroism is not fighting some big battle. It is not standing up to some fearsome foe ... Heroism is every day getting up with a mission to show this world that you are going to light it up with your spirit, to make the best out of yourself. ~ Cory Booker

No matter what, we always have the power to choose hope over despair, engagement over apathy, kindness over indifference, enthusiasm over lethargy, love over hate. This is our true freedom. Whatever life may throw at us, we have the freedom and ability to choose our attitude. And I believe it is in those moments of choice that we manifest our destiny. ~ Cory Booker

If you look at great human civilizations, from the Roman Empire to the Soviet Union, you will see that most do not fail simply due to external threats but because of internal weakness, corruption, or a failure to manifest the values and ideals they espouse. ~ Cory Booker

Once you strike a note on the organ, it's going to stay with you until you either make it louder or softer or let it go. So it's a little bit like the human voice, so you can put a human characteristic in it. ~ Booker T. Jones

Booker Sistrunk sat awkwardly with his hands behind him and continued the mouthing: "You oughtta be ashamed of yourself, treating a brother like this." "The white guy's gettin' the same treatment," Ozzie said. "You're violating my civil rights." "And you're violatin' mine with your mouth. Now shut up or I'll lock you under the jail. We got a little basement down there. ~ John Grisham

If you'll just settle down and listen, I'll explain." Cautiously, he turned her around so she faced him. Then, before she could protest, he looked at her mouth, appeared drawn there and he started kissing her again, light, teasing kisses. "I swear, Frannie, you have the sexiest mouth."

"In about two seconds, I'm going to unman you with my knee." He released her and stepped back so quickly, she almost smiled. "Now, if you insist, you can explain while you help me move my stuff."

-Booker and Frannie ~ Lori Foster

Hakeem: A wise man once said that suffering produces perseverance, character; and character, hope.
Andre: Since when did spouting masochism make one wise? And the sacraments of a bitter existence? Who deemed that a vaunted prize? Nihilistic philosophy only births more pain. It's fruitless to espouse folly, repackage it as wisdom, and spew it in a wise man's name. ~ Booker T. Mattison

Our platform is crafted by Democrats but it is not about partisanship, its about pragmatism. ~ Cory Booker

Let's not judge. Let's draw inspiration from each other's stories - successes and failures - and realize we're all connected. ~ Cory Booker

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. ~ Booker T. Washington

The Commonwealth Prize is about celebrating the Commonwealth and the special relationship we have with the ex-colonies - which is part guilt and part warmth - and the Booker Prize isn't an essential part of that, but it is part of that. ~ Jim Crace

Go out there and swear to this world your oath, not with your words, but with what you do. Not with your hand over your heart, but with your hand outstretched to a world that desperately needs your hand, your help, your insights, your creativity, your honor, your courage. It needs you. ~ Cory Booker

You go to school, you study about the Germans and the French, but not about your own race. I hope the time will come when you study black history too. ~ Booker T. Washington

The proselytisers for man-made global warming have long exercised a tight stranglehold over the contents of Wikipedia. ~ Christopher Booker

Remember that everyone's life is measured by the power that individual has to make the world better-this is all life is. ~ Booker T. Washington

Every person who has grown to any degree of usefulness, every person who has grown to distinction, almost without exception has been a person who has risen by overcoming obstacles, by removing difficulties, by resolving that when he met discouragements he would not give up. Make up your minds that you are going to overcome every discouragement, and that you are not going to let any discouragement overcome you. Those ~ Booker T. Washington

In any country, regardless of what its laws say, wherever people act upon the idea that the disadvantage of one man is the good of another, there slavery exists. Wherever, in any country the whole people feel that the happiness of all is dependent upon the happiness of the weakest, there freedom exists. ~ Booker T. Washington

In America we have a Declaration of Independence, but our history, our advancements, our global strength all point to an American declaration of interdependence. ~ Cory Booker

The change we seek for our nation is not the choice of an individual but must be the calling of a country. ~ Cory Booker

My dad set a clear model for me for what manhood was all about. ~ Cory Booker

I love seeing on Twitter when someone says I'm gay, and I say, 'So what does it matter if I am? So be it. I hope you are not voting for me because you are making the presumption that I'm straight.' ~ Cory Booker

I first met Brother Booker at the House of Peace, while delivering donated Christmas trees and lights during the holidays.
I had no grasp of the depth of the man's character, or the quality of the individuals he surrounded himself with. But I remember walking away amazed by the man, and marveling at the chaos that swirled around him...having researched his life and talked with many of his nearest and dearest, I am even more amazed today. ~ Willy Thorn

I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise. ~ Booker T. Washington

You were not built for comfort and convenience. You were built to overcome. ~ Cory Booker