Richard Wright Quotes (27 Quotes)


    He had lived and acted on the assumption that he was alone, and now he saw that he had not been. What he had done made others suffer. No matter how much he would long for them to forget him, they would not be able to. His family was a part of him, not only in blood, but in spirit.

    Pity can purge us of hostility and arouse feelings of identification with the characters, but it can also be a consoling reassurance which leads us to believe that we have understood, and that, in pitying, we have even done something to right a wrong.

    Slowly he lifted his hands in the darkness and held them in mid-air, the fingers spread weakly open. If he reached out with his hands, and if his hands were electric wires, and if his heart were a battery giving life and fire to those hands, and if he reached out with his hands and touched other people, reached out through these stone walls and felt other hands connected with other hearts -- if he did that, would there be a reply, a shock?

    They hate because they fear, and they fear because they feel that the deepest feelings of their lives are being assaulted and outraged. And they do not know why; they are powerless pawns in a blind play of social forces.

    Violence is a personal necessity for the oppressed...It is not a strategy consciously devised. It is the deep, instinctive expression of a human being denied individuality.


    This complaint has been pending for nearly four years. We have satisfied every provision of the settlement. This matter is now behind us, and we are glad to have the issue finally resolved.


    Blues, spirituals, and folk tales recounted from mouth to mouth . . . all these formed the channels through which the racial wisdom flowed.

    Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.

    It's the longest argument I've ever heard. It's a filibuster. As long as he is talking, I can't talk.

    I think the difference between our defense from last year and this year is that last year we had big, strong linemen, and this year our linemen are smaller, but we make up for it with our speed.

    Men simply copied the realities of their hearts when they built prisons.


    We knew about that. We want to get him over to join up with the squad and he can travel back for the court case.

    I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.


    Don't leave inferences to be drawn when evidence can be presented.

    He has signed a contract with us and I heard on Monday that his work permit has been received. We were expecting him to join us at any time.

    The impulse to dream was slowly beaten out of me by experience. Now it surged up again and I hungered for books, new ways of looking and seeing.

    Nobody has any confidence. Nobody wants to buy anything and if they do buy anything they're wrong within about 10 minutes. It's fairly gloomy.

    As a rule, memories fade with the passage of time, instead of remembering with specificity but providing no dates or times as backup. It was the first time, to our knowledge, these things have ever been said.



    It's always difficult to pare down so many books. There's only room for five on the raft. So there was give and take. There has to be compromise, but it was very amicable. We had a fair degree of consensus. And we're happy with the choices. We think these five books represent the best of Canadian fiction this year.

    We're not sure how long it will be before Willie can join us because of the community work, but we plan to stick with him because we think he is a decent lad who just got in with the wrong crowd.

    It's definitely no holiday. You get through an enormous amount of work. The sessions are intense and you are at it every day.

    The artist must bow to the monster of his own imagination.


    More Richard Wright Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Man - Emotions - Work & Career - Time - Books - Individuality - Honor - Fairness - Youth - Dreams - Violence - People - Characters - Hostility - Family - Wisdom & Knowledge - Sense & Perception - Communities - Memory - View All Richard Wright Quotations

    More Richard Wright Quotations (By Book Titles)


    - Native Son

    Related Authors


    Leo Tolstoy - Naguib Mahfouz - Louisa May Alcott - Jack Higgins - J. R. R. Tolkien - J. D. Salinger - Honore de Balzac - Boris Pasternak - Anne Bronte - Alistair Maclean


Authors (by First Name)

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M
N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

Other Inspiring Sections