Henry Louis Gates Quotes
The Dominican Republic says 'We're black behind the ears.' And in Mexico, 'there's a black grandma in the closet.' They know, they've just been intermarrying for a long time. But if we did the DNA of everyone in Mexico a whole lot of people would have a whole lot of black in them.
Quotes to Explore
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I consider music to be storytelling, melody and rhythm. A lot of hip-hop has broken music down. There are no instruments and no songwriting. So you're left with just storytelling and rhythm. And the storytelling can be so braggadocious, you're just left with rhythm.
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In some ways, jazz is the most precise of art forms and the loosest in the sense that it's all about improvisation, but the musicianship required is kind of insane. To actually play with real jazz musicians is a different level of musicianship that almost has no equal in any other form of music in the world.
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My 50th birthday approaching felt like a big milestone to me. I've lived half a century. If I write about food and use my life as a fulcrum to move the story along, maybe I've lived long enough to fashion a narrative that has a happy ending.
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In the day-to-day, farm work is stress relief for me. At the end of the day, I love having this other career - my anti-job - that keeps me in shape and gives me control over a vegetal domain.
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I don't find anything upsetting or gross or degrading about fighting with a mental illness: Bipolar or Schizophrenia.
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I do not think that having children - I have three teenagers - keeps you young. The reverse. It thrusts you into a full-frontal confrontation with your own all-too-obvious maturity.
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I don't like attacking.
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I had studied theater for three years in London when someone suggested me for the role.
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The man who practises unselfishness, who is genuinely interested in the welfare of others, who feels it a privilege to have the power to do a fellow-creature a kindness - even though polished manners and a gracious presence may be absent - will be an elevating influence wherever he goes.
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A war still rages over the legacy of the 1960s.
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Art is that which comes to a man, and stands between himself and an implacable witness: the work.
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I could never sit down and say: I'm going to do an out-and-out comedy, just to prove to people I can. You've just got to do what you do. Just listen to your soul and do your art and do it for the right reasons, and then you can't fail.
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Wild animals would not stay in a country where there were so many people. Pa did not like to stay, either. He liked a country where the wild animals lived without being afraid.
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New synthetic substances - steel, concrete, glass - are actively superseding the traditional raw materials of construction.
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Limitations can be hugely creative and hugely inspiring - so long as they are the ones you choose for yourself. I will not allow anyone to take anything off my palette, but if I do, then within that, I can be creative.
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So most astronauts are astronauts for a couple of years before they are assigned to a flight.
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I think my blog is fairly circumspect and elliptical. I've written personal essays, but they are short and to the point: in and out, and that's that.
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No matter how long he lives, no man ever becomes as wise as the average woman of forty-eight.
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It's important to read books and see people who look like you. It helps you know that you are not the only one or the weird one because you're a black girl and you are not seeing anyone who looks like you in these books.
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Learning about the way people process information and their emotions is hugely helpful to my work.
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Everyone wants to be a stylist. If you know that's your calling, then you need to intern as much a humanly possible. You need to go to fashion school if you can.
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I've shaken hands with every radio station, from Honduras to Ryan Seacrest's.
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The Dominican Republic says 'We're black behind the ears.' And in Mexico, 'there's a black grandma in the closet.' They know, they've just been intermarrying for a long time. But if we did the DNA of everyone in Mexico a whole lot of people would have a whole lot of black in them.
