Pearl Cleage Quotes
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Denzel Washington is a big Hollywood movie star now. But he started out as an actor in the Negro Ensemble company.
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I didn't have a dream of being a press secretary, I had a dream of being a playwright; I had a dream of being a novelist and a poet.
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As African-Americans, we often spend our time and energy blaming other people for the problems we see around us.
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Freedom can be a full-time job if you let it.
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If you don't annoy your big sister for no good reason from time to time, she thinks you don't love her anymore.
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A lot of brothers don't understand. When it comes to making love, reciprocity is everything.
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I truly love the rehearsal process, those eight hours a day! I really love actors.
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Domestic violence is the front line of the war against women.
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It is a dangerous time to be a black woman in America. It’s a time when we are not safe in the streets or at home or at school or at work and nobody seems to be able to do anything about it. Nobody. Not us. Not our mommas. Not the police. Not the people we elected to look out for our interests. Nobody. We’re just out here.
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Loneliness is black coffee and late-night television; solitude is herb tea and soft music.
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Feminism is to sexism what black nationalism is to racism; the most rational response to the problem.
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Sometimes you have to show them what they want to see in order to get them to show you who they really are.
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You can't know the meaning of the lesson until class is over!
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I think it's hard to make a living as a writer, but I think it's hard to work at McDonald's too.... I think the commitment is to get up everyday and say, "I'm a writer, therefore what I'm supposed to do today is write." And to do that, and to do that and to do that.
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Sometimes you meet yourself on the road before you have a chance to learn the appropriate greeting. Faced with your own possibilities, the hard part is knowing a speech is not required. All you have to say is yes.
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Sisterhood is a funny thing. It's easy to recognize, but hard to define.
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When I got to the end of this play, I realized I was trying to make Angel do something that had not been justified by the characters and by their story . . .. I kept trying to force it, but that doesn't work. So I had to come to terms with what it meant for me to create a character who doesn't triumph.
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Loneliness is random; solitude is ritual.
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No woman can love a weak man hard enough to make him strong.
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You can't save a person who doesn't want to be saved. It was like Mr. Eddie always told the new gardeners: Everybody's got to kill their own snakes.
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Old habits are hard to break, but not impossible!
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The problem with knowing is that it takes away the possibility of pretending!
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Vera Stark is a fabulous force of nature.
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What looks like crazy on an ordinary day looks looks a lot like love if you catch it in the moonlight.