Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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I feel my story has been exercised very thoroughly and very frequently.
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For decades in America, there has been an effort to ensure that the rights of those who are not sane are the same as the rights of those who are.
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If you stop being scared, that's when entropy sets in, and you may as well go home.
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I've always been into sports and yoga and running. I actually study a martial arts self-defense program called Krav Maga. I can't quite say it's easy, but it's fun for me and I love to do it.
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There's a puppy store near where I live. They know me by name in there because I go so often.
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I don't really look forward to movie stardom or doing a $200-million movie or winning an Academy Award.
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It's important for any artist - particularly female artists - to feel completely comfortable and to know what they're trying to do.
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Asked to choose between money and fame, I'd choose the latter every time.
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Lester is the Rock of Gibraltar. Nothing can rattle him. I am not. I was always flying off the handle about things. And the one person who could calm me down and make me realize that none of this silliness mattered was Lester Holt.
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There are no free lunches in life. You have to earn it. I am paying my dues. People have accused me of having it easy because I am Amitabh Bachchan's son. Yes, I am his son, and I've never run away from it. I work hard to make him proud.
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No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.
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Integrity is so perishable in the summer months of success.
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Writing is literally transformative. When we read, we are changed. When we write, we are changed. It's neurological. To me, this is a kind of magic.
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My mum told me to have patience. It's about realising that when things aren't going the way you want them to, or you don't have inspiration, it will come.
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I'm probably borderline OCD. I insist on having all objects at right angles to each other. So a fork has to be at a right angle to the knife on the table. The salt and pepper pots have to be placed close together. Only recently have I started to notice it's a weird way to behave.
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I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world, considering us as a civilized and a Christian country, that we deny the advantages of learning to women.
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No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.
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I'd rather betray the world than let the world betray me.
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'A splendidly inept thing,' Sylveste said, nodding despite himself.'What?''The human capacity for grief. It just isn’t capable of providing an adequate emotional response once the dead exceed a few dozen in number. And it doesn’t just level off-it just gives up, resets itself to zero. Admit it. None of us feel a damn about these people.'
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Quantum physics is a bit of a passion of mine. It's extraordinary. There's a branch of mathematics that is based on lunacy, and that's wonderful.
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I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the word begin to move around. Stressed accents begin to invert. The word abandons its meaning like an overload which is too heavy and prevents dreaming. Then words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young. And the words wander away, looking in the nooks and crannies of vocabulary for new company, bad company.
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I had a great AP U.S. History teacher in Pittsburgh. We still exchange Christmas cards. She was the first teacher who said I was a good writer - and I'd never heard that before. And so I remember that, and I remember that level of loving the material and really loving writing about it.
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'Muppets' is incredibly analog, 'Alice' is very digital.
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You actually can’t understand American history without understanding slavery.
