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It had been only through books-at best, no more than vicarious cultural transfusions-that I had managaed to keep myself alive in a negatively vital way.

Richard Wright

They hate because they fear, and they fear because they feel that the deepest feelings of their lives are being assaulted and outraged.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Being Deepest Fear Feeling Hate Live Play
A mode of being that the way of life about me had said could not be, must not be, and upon which the penalty of death had been placed.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Could Death Emotion Mode Must Penalty Place Sad Said Way
Don’t leave inferences to be drawn when evidence can be presented.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Drawing Evidence Inference Interfere
But the color of a Negro’s skin makes him easily recognizable, makes him suspect, converts him into a defenseless target
RICHARD WRIGHT

Color Convert Defense Make Recognizable Skin Suspect Target
But to feel that there was feeling denied me, that the very breath of life itself was beyond my reach, that more than anything else hurt, wounded me. I had a new hunger.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Anything Beyond Breath Denied Else Feel Hunger New
We had our own literature, our own systems of law, religion, medicine, science, and education.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Education Literature Medicine Own Religion Science System
We black and they white. They got things and we ain’t. They do things and we can’t. It’s just like livin’ in jail.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Black Country Jail Living People Thing White
The artist must bow to the monster of his own imagination.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Art Artist Halloween Imagination Monster
I could endure the hunger. I had learned to live with hate.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Endure Feeling Hate Hunger Hurt Learn Live
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.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Arouse Believe Character Feeling Hostility Identification Right Something Wrong
I was taking a part of the South to transplant in alien soil, to see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns and, perhaps, to bloom
RICHARD WRIGHT

Bloom Differently Drink Perhaps South Strange Transplant Warm Wind
there are times when life’s ends are so raveled that reason and sense cry out that we stop and gather them together again before we can proceed
RICHARD WRIGHT

Again Cry End Gather Reason Revealed Sense Stop Together
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.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Expression Individuality Oppressed Personal Strategy Violence
Is not life exactly what it ought to be, in a certain sense? Isn’t it only the naive who find all of this baffling?
RICHARD WRIGHT

Certain Civilization Exactly Heart Life Men Ought Sense
We smelted iron, danced, made music and folk poems; we sculpted, worked in glass, spun cotton and wool, wove baskets and cloth.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Basket Cloth Cotton Dance Folk Glass Iron Music Poem Smelted Spun Wool Work
If a man confessed anything on his death bed, it was the truth; for no man could stare death in the face and lie.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Anything Bed Confess Face Lie Lying Man Men Stare

It had been only through books-at best, no more than vicarious cultural transfusions-that I had managaed to keep myself alive in a negatively vital way.

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It had been only through books-at best, no more than vicarious cultural transfusions-that I had managaed to keep myself alive in a negatively vital way.

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Popular Authors

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