18 quotes
Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you.
In my writing, as much as I could, I tried to find the good, and praise it.
A Kwanzaa Celebration (1995)
“You’ve got to want to write,” I say to them, “not want to be a writer.”
When you clench your fist, no one can put anything in your hand, nor can your hand pick up anything.
Roots : The Saga of an American Family (1976)
This is the Shadowland of hope, and anyone with a dream must learn to live there.
Many a young person tells me he wants to be a writer. I always encourage such people, but I also explain that there’s a big difference between “being a writer” and writing.
You don't spend twenty years of your life in the service and not have a warm, nostalgic feeling left in you … It's a small service, and there's a lot of esprit de corps.
Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help.
A Touch of Class (2003)
You’ve got to want to write … not want to be a writer.
When you start about family, about lineage and ancestry, you are talking about every person on earth. We all have it; it's a great equalizer.
Time interview (1977)
Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children.
Statement in Reader's Digest (1987)
The family is our refuge and our springboard; nourished on it, we can advance to new horizons. In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.
Traits of a Healthy Family (1983)
Have family reunions. There is something magic about the common sense of a blood bond. It's not less magic for black, white, brown or polka dot.
Time interview (1977)
If I had been taking hashish, I could not have dreamed of this.
Time interview (1977)
I knew I wanted to write. I had dreamed about it for years.
Many grandparents carry three or four generations of history in their heads but don't talk about it because they have been ignored.
Time interview (1977)
Early in the spring of 1750, in the village of Juffure, four days upriver from the coast of The Gambia, West Africa, a manchild was born to Omoro and Binta Kinte.
Roots : The Saga of an American Family (1976)
Roots is not just a saga of my family. It is the symbolic saga of a people.
Disputed