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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

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
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
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
I made things happen within. Because my environment was bare and bleak,
RICHARD WRIGHT

Bleak Environment Happen Made Thing Vbare
It hugs the easy way of damning those whom it cannot understand, of excluding those who look different, and it salves its conscience with a self-draped cloak of righteousness
RICHARD WRIGHT

Conscience Damm Drape Easy Hug Righteousness Salvie Self
I could think of nothing. And, slowly, it was upon exactly that nothingness that my mind began to dwell, that constant sense of wanting without having, of being hated without reason.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Began Constant Could Hate Mind Nothingness Reason Sense Slowly Upon Want
The artist must bow to the monster of his own imagination.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Art Artist Halloween Imagination Monster
We invented a medium of exchange, mined silver and gold, made pottery and cutlery, we fashioned tools and utensils of brass, bronze, ivory, quartz, and granite.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Brass Bronze exchange Fashion Granite Made Medium Silver Utensil
I was leaving the South to fling myself into the unknown . . .
RICHARD WRIGHT

Darling Leaving Myself Rain South Unknown Wind
In me was shaping a yearning for a kind of consciousness.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Consciousness Heart Kind Light Night Shape Yearning
Our too-young and too-new America, lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Afraid Bad Country Good Lonely Self Term White
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
Goddamnit, look! We live here and they live there.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Black Goddamnit Jail Life White
We had our own literature, our own systems of law, religion, medicine, science, and education.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Education Literature Medicine Own Religion Science System
If you’ve a notion of what man’s heart is, wouldn’t you say that maybe the whole effort of man on earth to build a civilization is simply man’s frantic and frightened attempt to hide himself from himself?
RICHARD WRIGHT

Attempt Civilization Earth Effort Frantic Frightened Notion Say
The spirit I had caught gave me insight into the suffering of others, made me gravitate toward those whose feelings were like my own, made me sit for hours while others told me of their lives, made me strangely tender and cruel, violent and peaceful.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Gratitude Hour Like Live Made Peacefully Spirit Suffer Tender Violent

If a man confessed anything on his death bed, it was the truth; for no man could stare death in the face and lie.

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If a man confessed anything on his death bed, it was the truth; for no man could stare death in the face and lie.

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Popular Authors

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