James McBride Quotes
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James Brown's life was really a metaphor for our inability to talk about matters like race and class in America.
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I read more history books than anything else.
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All of us want to be Superman when we grow up, fighting for truth and justice. That's part of what drives me as a writer.
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The black church will accept anybody.
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James Brown's music still sounds as fresh and as good and as new as it did when he first created it.
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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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A lot of people are not interested in stories in which they don't see themselves.
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I put headlights in Ford vans. I still drive a Ford.
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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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Don't get me started on Americans and war. One of the things I learnt over in Italy is how they mythologised the war so that it's all good old gung-ho guys from Omaha and ignored everyone else's role.
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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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Historical novels are hard to do for the general public for commercial writers like myself.
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I think heroes who are not flawed are not believable.
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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'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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Until you expose the cancer, you can't fix it.
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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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I just love music, and I love what music does for people.
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When you glorify violence, then it comes back to bite you.
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As a journalist, the details always tell the story.
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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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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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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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Some writers like to go around talking about what they do all the time. I don't.