Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
One cannot, at once, claim to be superhuman and then plead mortal error. I propose to take our countrymen's claims of American exceptionalism seriously, which is to say I propose subjecting our country to an exceptional moral standard.
Quotes to Explore
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I was interned in Auschwitz for one year. I didn't bring back anything, except for a few jokes, and that filled me with shame. Then again, I didn't know what to do with this fresh experience. For this experience was no literary awakening, no occasion for professional or artistic introspection.
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When movies first came out, maybe they were in black and white and there wasn't any sound and people were saying the theater is still the place to be. But now movies and theater have found their own place in the world. They are each legitimate art forms.
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I don't know whether the universe contains any evidence of intelligent design, but I can assure you that thousands of everyday products do not.
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I don't even know how to define myself. I'm a person who writes. It's something I enjoy, and hopefully people enjoy it as well.
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I found one had to do some work every day, even at midnight, because either you're professional or you're not.
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The man who is intent on making the most of his opportunities is too busy to bother about luck.
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My English teachers gave me a copy of Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale' when I left high school, which has always been very special to me - it was the novel that introduced me to dystopian fiction. I'm also influenced by Edgar Allan Poe, Dickens, John Wyndham and Middle English dream-visions.
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My life is black and white and mixed. My mother's a Rastafarian, my dad was a short white guy - it's not an affectation. It's also the lives of millions of people throughout the world.
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If men possessed wisdom, which stands in the same relation to the form of man as the sight to the eye, they would not cause any injury to themselves or to others; for the knowledge of truth removes hatred and quarrels, and prevents mutual injuries.
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Political theatre presents an entirely different set of problems. Sermonising has to be avoided at all cost. Objectivity is essential. The characters must be allowed to breathe their own air. The author cannot confine and constrict them to satisfy his own taste or disposition or prejudice.
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Let someone else be the world's greatest actress. I'll be the world's greatest baseball fan.
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There was no religion in my life growing up. Did God invent us or did we invent God?
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I know it's surprising, but there is a generation of people who haven't seen a Bond movie. They have no idea what it is. I want to entertain them as much as anyone else.
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There are those people that eat to live and those that live to eat. I am of the latter, as many of you already know. To me, eating is an adventure.
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Dried porcini add a substantial, deep flavour to otherwise more neutral vegetables. I use them in risottos, mashed roots and winter soups.
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There was a verse that said if you are lukewarm rather than hot or cold, God will spit you out of his mouth on Judgment Day. And I felt like, I mean, I don't know. I'm lukewarm.
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Life isn't fair, and it isn't government's job to make life fair. But if you're not willing to give up on yourself, then we shouldn't give up on you, either.
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Healing yourself is connected with healing others.
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I'm not saying everybody has to walk around with a six-shooter, but they have to be prepared. You don't have to be militarized, but you have to be ready.
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The real 1960s began on the afternoon of November 22, 1963. It came to seem that Kennedy's murder opened some malign trap door in American culture, and the wild bats flapped out.
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Obama has no way to conceal that Osama was executed in front of his children and wives, who are now under the custody of the authorities of Pakistan, a Muslim country of almost 200 million inhabitants, whose laws have been violated, its national dignity offended, and its religious traditions desecrated.
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In America right now, we use words like 'smart' to talk about bombs. American rhetoric is grounded in ideas of capital-G Good, capital-E Evil, and it's very clear who is on which side. But in a book you can do just the opposite. You can use all lower-case words.
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You're either too fat or too thin. You just can't win.
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One cannot, at once, claim to be superhuman and then plead mortal error. I propose to take our countrymen's claims of American exceptionalism seriously, which is to say I propose subjecting our country to an exceptional moral standard.
