Kevin Young Quotes
For the black author, and even the ex-slave narrator, creativity has often lain with the lie - forging an identity, 'making' one, but 'lying' about one, too.
Quotes to Explore
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I'm terrified of therapy because I don't want it to mess with my creativity.
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The man does not beat your head because you got a Cadillac or because you got a Ford; he beats you because you're black!
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In a completely integrated unit where you'd have white soldiers, particularly from southern states, serving under black noncommissioned officers or officers... I think you would have a problem definitely.
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My dream part would be to play Mitt Romney's sarcastic black maid. We could call it 'Mammy & Me.'
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Creativity is generating ideas that are novel and useful. I define originals as people who go beyond dreaming up the ideas and take initiative to make their visions a reality.
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I love to drive in the Black Hills of Wyoming and South Dakota with Mount Rushmore as the central stop.
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Eddie Conway is central to my first memories. My parents used to take me to, when it was open, the Baltimore city penitentiary to see Eddie Conway - I was talking to my dad about this recently - from the time I might have been one or two years old. I mean, literally, my first memories are of black men in jail, specifically of Eddie Conway.
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Black people can be the most conservative, the most discriminating. Especially among ourselves. It wasn't white people who said all black men have to wear baggy jeans.
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I am an author, and like many in my profession, I am also a traveling salesman, going all over in an attempt to persuade people to spend twenty-five dollars on a hardcover book by me.
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Success should stem from entrepreneurial creativity, not political connectivity.
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After two years at UCLA, I decided to leave. I was convinced that no amount of education would help a black man get a job.
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We did a play of 'Frog and Toad' at my elementary school. And I'm not sure if this is part of the book or it was something that we made up on our own, but I auditioned to play the black hole, which somehow makes sense to me.
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One day, out of irritation, I said, you know all of those years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, all those years of playing kings and princes and speaking black verse, and bestriding the landscape of England was nothing but a preparation for sitting in the captain's chair of the Enterprise.
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In a typical history book, black Americans are mentioned in the context of slavery or civil rights. There's so much more to the story.
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The best advice I got as a writer was also the first advice, which came from the late fantasy author and editor Karl Edward Wagner: Any agent who charges to look at your work is a crook.
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Commitment and creativity cannot be captured and handcuffed. Inspiration cannot be jailed. The heart cannot be contained.
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Any successful black person will have to face suspicion within his or her own community about his or her loyalty to other blacks.
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I didn't grow up with money; I didn't come from a rich family. But what fashion gave me was an escape into a world of creativity: if I couldn't afford that Junior Gaultier jacket, then I'd get one from the market and customise it.
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From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.
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Even before 9/11 I was gripped by a sense of dread: our lack of criticism about what we were doing in the Middle East - the slagging off of a whole religious tradition.
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It's priceless what you learn when you actually do. It's like going to film school times eleven. The best education is effectively to be functioning in the occupation that you want to take on.
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When I was a kid, those were carefree days without much pressure.
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For the black author, and even the ex-slave narrator, creativity has often lain with the lie - forging an identity, 'making' one, but 'lying' about one, too.
