Skip to content

In my writing, as much as I could, I tried to find the good, and praise it.

— Alex Haley A Kwanzaa Celebration (1995)

Another quote →

Notes from Wikiquote

This motto appears on the emblem of the Medium Endurance Cutter USCGC Alex Haley, named after the writer, as "FIND THE GOOD AND PRAISE IT". It is declared to have been his personal motto.

Variants

Find the good — and praise it.

Topics

Writing

More quotes by Alex Haley

Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you.

“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.

All Alex Haley quotes →

You may also like

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Francis Bacon Meditationes sacræ (1597)

Strength of creative writing lies in the skill of handling words and articulating artistic expression of feelings.”

Suman Pokhrel

The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.

Robert Benchley

Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,
Through words and things, a dim and perilous way.

William Wordsworth Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Alex Haley (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.