Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes

[Winning the White House was an achievement], but as an African-American, [Barack Obama], I think the symbolism is in how he conducted himself. The symbolism was in - and this sounds really, really small, but it's actually big for African-Americans - the symbolism was not in being an embarrassment, but to being a figure that folks were actually proud of.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

• American
• House
• Small
• Proud
• Winning
• Achievement

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• I believe in the Prince of Peace. I believe that War is Murder. I believe that armies and navies are at bottom the tinsel and braggadocio of oppression and wrong, and I believe that the wicked conquest of weaker and darker nations by nations whiter and stronger but foreshadows the death of that strength.

  

  W. E. B. Du Bois
  • Believe
  • War
  • Death

• Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • May
  • Faith
  • Belief

• To even get to the Olympics, I have to qualify for the 2013 World Championships and the standard is high. I know I am always going to be a few points behind the top guys.

  

  Vanessa Mae
  • Olympics
  • Qualify
  • World Championships

• Many people thought I would never succeed, because I am so Russian. So Russian, hundred percent.

  

  Natalia Makarova
  • Succeed
  • Russian

• I don't think that - you know, I'm sure that there's guys that are doing it, because I'm sure in every sport there's players who want to get the edge. But I think that it's been blown overly - way more than guys are using it in our game.

  

  Rafael Palmeiro
  • Game
  • Doing
  • Edge

• I think of Twitter as the place where I go to have a great conversation when I can't have one locally, which seems to be all the time, and the more time that I spend on Twitter, the more I sort of curate this incredible group of very intelligent people that I just get to know purely through the quality of their thoughts.

  

  Naval Ravikant
  • People
  • Time
  • Great

• It may be that apartheid brings such stupendous economic advantages to countries that they would sooner have apartheid than permit its destruction.

  

  Oliver Tambo
  • May
  • Economic
  • Destruction

• My first job ever was on 'Peak Practice.' I just had to walk up the stairs. They kept the take where I slipped slightly, which was annoying.

  

  Vicky McClure
  • Up
  • Job
  • Practice

• I love doing girly stuff with my mum or with Sophia. I took Sophia and a couple of her friends to the Hello Kitty spa. They had chocolate facials and Hello Kitty mani-pedis. I put it on my Twitter and got lots of abuse for it, but I think it's just a nice girly thing.

  

  Abbey Clancy
  • Friends
  • Think
  • Nice

• What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.

  

  T. S. Eliot
  • Beginning
  • End
  • Start

• I hate thinking about clothes. I hate shopping.

  

  Natalie Maines
  • Thinking
  • Hate
  • Shopping

• There are so many figures in our history that did not believe they could make a change, and they did.

  

  Malala Yousafzai
  • Believe
  • History
  • Change

• When I'm actually writing by hand, I get more of a sense of the rhythm of sentences, of syntax. The switch to the computer is when I actually start thinking about lines. That's the workhorse part. At that point, I'm being more mathematical about putting the poem on the page and less intuitive about the rhythm of the syntax.

  

  Natasha Trethewey
  • Thinking
  • Writing
  • Hand

• I have little doubt that gerontologists will eventually find a way to avoid, or more likely, delay, the unpleasantries of extended life.

  

  S. Jay Olshansky
  • Life
  • Doubt
  • Find

• I was quite good at football once, although other than that my speciality would be maths. I'm great at sudokus and find all the spin-off games pretty easy too.

  

  Gary Lineker
  • Good
  • Great
  • Pretty

• I wrote 'Buried Child' in a trailer at an old ranch house we had in California.

  

  Sam Shepard
  • House
  • Child
  • California

• I think every day we look at the mess of the chaos of the civil war in Iraq, I think every day people become more and more convinced that the war was a mistake. I think we have to learn from the mistakes of our past.

  

  Rand Paul
  • People
  • War
  • Past

• I have lots of passions - gardens, art, music and reading. I have eclectic taste and read a huge variety of books.

  

  Zoe Wanamaker
  • Music
  • Art
  • Reading

• Being a writer usually entails a fairly quiet life. However much travel one might do, however many tours and appearances, the job entails solitude: long hours in libraries, long hours at a desk.

  

  Jill Paton Walsh
  • Life
  • Long
  • Job

• I was a pretty lousy bass player. But the band I was in couldn't find a bass player in our small town and it was more important to have a bass than keyboards, so that's what I did.

  

  Anne Boleyn
  • Important
  • Pretty
  • Small

• I received a card the other day from Steve Early which said, "Don't Worry Me--I am an 8 Ulcer Man on 4 Ulcer Pay.

  

  Harry S Truman
  • Card
  • Steve Early
  • 8 Ulcer Man

• Short-story writing requires an exquisite sense of balance. Novelists, frankly, can get away with more. A novel can have a dull spot or two, because the reader has made a different commitment.

  

  Lynn Abbey
  • Different
  • Writing
  • Balance

• There is nothing man desires more than a heroic life: there is nothing less common to men than heroism.

  

  Jacques Maritain
  • Life
  • Men

• [Winning the White House was an achievement], but as an African-American, [Barack Obama], I think the symbolism is in how he conducted himself. The symbolism was in - and this sounds really, really small, but it's actually big for African-Americans - the symbolism was not in being an embarrassment, but to being a figure that folks were actually proud of.

  

  Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • American
  • House
  • Small