James McBride Quotes
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My mother tried her best to give us a sense of self-esteem.
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I like stories where normal people are in abnormal situations, and that's what appeals to me about history.
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I wish all critics, no matter their color, were more sophisticated when it comes to the moral questions a film like 'St. Anna' is trying to raise.
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John Brown was the abolitionist to end all abolitionists. People thought he was crazy. He was like John Coltrane playing free jazz, exhausting all possibilities in his approach to harmony and improvisation.
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Writing for me is cutting out the fat and getting to the meaning.
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I don't live for my work. My life is my life. That's more important, and I think that helps my work.
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I understand it's great to read a great book, but it's better to live your life. It just helps me. It's uncomfortable at times, but you have to live outside the circle.
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As far as making a living, if plumbing earned more, I'd probably do it. At least you can leave the job at home once the tools are put away. A writer works in his mind 24/7.
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Be kind to the living.
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I just don't see the point in sitting around hollering the blues over things you have no control over. It's all in God's hands.
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My family is my career.
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When I was younger, I was ambitious. Now I'm not ambitious anymore. I just want to be happy. Does that make sense?
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First person narrative is a very effective tool but you have to know as a writer how to make it work.
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I'm not one of those deeper, ethereal writers. I'm just trying to get it done.
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My father died in 1957, just before I was born. My mother went to her Jewish aunt, who slammed the door in her face.
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People call him a terrorist, but you can use language to do many things and say many things about people, but John Brown was a hero.
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A band is not a democracy: It's show business.
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When we're talking about slavery... we're really talking about the web of relationships that exists between whites and blacks from 1619 to 1865 to now.
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I can't be a creative person if I'm a celebrity.
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Every time I see something about the Wild West, I'm reminded that our version of history may not be what really happened.
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A lot of mixed-race stories are these navel-gazing, horrible accounts of mulatto tragedy.
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James Brown was the Monday-to-Friday guy. He was the hardest man in show business. He was like your dad and your uncle: He showed up, and he hit hard.
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Historians will tell you that they deal with fact and empirical evidence. But that doesn't really help me understand a person.
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When I was coming up, a lot of serious jazz players couldn't stand funk.