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I knew that I lived in a country in which the aspirations of black people were limited, marked-off. Yet I felt that I had to go somewhere and do something to redeem my being alive.

Richard Wright

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
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 more closely the author thinks of why he wrote, the more he comes to regard his imagination as a kind of self-generating cement which glued his facts together, and his emotions as a kind of dark and obscure designer of those facts.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Author Book Closely Come Dark Emotion Fact Imagination Kind More Regard Think Writing Wrote
All literature is protest.
RICHARD WRIGHT

All Literature Protest
Love grows from stable relationships, shared experience, loyalty, devotion, trust.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Devotion Experience Grow Love Loyalty Relationship
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
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
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
Hunger has always been more or less at my elbow when I played, but now I began to wake up at night to find hunger standing at my bedside, staring at my gauntly.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Always Elbow Hunger Less More Night Pray Up Wake
I did not know if the story was factually true or not, but it was emotionally true […].
RICHARD WRIGHT

Emotionally Factually Knows Stories True
What could I dream of that had the barest possibility of coming true?
RICHARD WRIGHT

Barest Coming Dream Justice Pososblity Thinking True
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
The holy and the evil, the high and the low, the white and the black; our America is frightened of fact, of history, of processes, of necessity.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Black Country Evil Fact Frightened High History Holy Necessity Process White
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
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
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

I knew that I lived in a country in which the aspirations of black people were limited, marked-off. Yet I felt that I had to go somewhere and do something to redeem my being alive.

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I knew that I lived in a country in which the aspirations of black people were limited, marked-off. Yet I felt that I had to go somewhere and do something to redeem my being alive.

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Popular Authors

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