James McBride Quotes
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People don't realize you're blowing over changes, time changes, harmony, different keys. I mark a point in my solo where it's got to peak at point D I go to A, B, C D then I'm home.
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I hate to sound blase about it, but literary status is not important to me. Being happy is important to me.
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It would be nice if we redefined what we meant by 'war story.' If you're making $15,000 a year living in a certain area of Portland, trying to make it with three kids and no husband, that's a kind of war.
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You can't live for literature. You can't live for the job.
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As a writer, you have to be near people and hear stuff. I'm a hamburger and cheese kind of fellow; I'm not Henry David Thoreau.
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We're learning a tremendous amount of propaganda from television and the Internet.
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The black church will accept anybody.
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I go through periods listening to specific types of music. Because I'm a musician, listening to music is... it's a bit like work for me. A little bit.
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Essentially, I'm a storyteller, and I make my living by telling stories, be they music or nonfiction or fiction.
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I read more history books than anything else.
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As a journalist, the details always tell the story.
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I'm trying to get Americans to see that we're all pretty much the same. I believe it; I was taught God doesn't have a color. I want to better the planet a little bit.
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When you tell them you're a writer, they say, 'What have you written?' And then you've got to tell them what you've done. I don't ask a plumber what he does. Then I have to explain what I've done, and I haven't really, you know. I've just told some stories.
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I think heroes who are not flawed are not believable.
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I used to walk through the Old Times Square fearing for my life. Now I wouldn't be caught dead there.
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A lot of people are not interested in stories in which they don't see themselves.
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I'm proud of 'Miracle at St. Anna' and I loved it; there's no question in my mind it's as good as any movie that came out in 2007.
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Historical novels are hard to do for the general public for commercial writers like myself.
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I cannot recall any moment of clarity about becoming a writer. I always liked to read. That's what did it.
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I have cousins in North Carolina who talk in that old Southern style of 'yakking,' if you will. All the black men in my life when I was a boy talked that way, and I love that kind of talk.
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Until you expose the cancer, you can't fix it.
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My wife and kids like the quiet and the countryside - I still find that kind of quiet hard to listen to.
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I'm hot on the Jewish book club circuit. How many black authors do you know who can say that?
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I don't like living around too many fancy-pantsy folks. That ain't my thing. I'm not into phony people.