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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
I could endure the hunger. I had learned to live with hate.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Endure Feeling Hate Hunger Hurt Learn Live
Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Book Environment Fail Support
Kill them, turn back time to the moment before I had talked so that I could have another chance to save myself.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Another Back Before Talk Chance Kill Moment Myself Save Turn
It made me love talk that sought answers to questions that could help nobody, that could only keep alive in me that enthralling sense of wonder and awe in the face of the drama of human feeling which is hidden by the external drama of life.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Answer Drama Feeling Help Human Love Made Nobody Question Sense Sought Wonder
You usually take it for granted and think you know us, but our history is far stranger than you suspect, and we are not what we seem.
RICHARD WRIGHT

City Grant History Pavement Seem Stranger Suspect Take Think
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
And they do not know why; they are powerless pawns in a blind play of social forces.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Blind Force Know Pawn Play Powerless Social
All literature is protest.
RICHARD WRIGHT

All Literature Protest
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
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
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
In me was shaping a yearning for a kind of consciousness.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Consciousness Heart Kind Light Night Shape Yearning
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
Each day when you see us black folk upon the dusty land of your farm or upon the hard pavement of your city streets.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Black Cities City Dusty Farm Folk Hard Land Pavement Street Thinking Upon
No matter how much he would long for them to forget him, they would not be able to. His family was a part of him, not only in blood, but in spirit.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Able Blood Family Forget Long Matter No Spirit

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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