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I was not leaving the south to forget the south, but so that some day I might understand it

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
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
All literature is protest.
RICHARD WRIGHT

All Literature Protest
I did not know if the story was factually true or not, but it was emotionally true […].
RICHARD WRIGHT

Emotionally Factually Knows Stories True
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
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

Alive Best Book Cultural Keep Manage Me More Support Transfusion Vicarious
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 could endure the hunger. I had learned to live with hate.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Endure Feeling Hate Hunger Hurt Learn Live
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
Reading was like a drug, a dope. The novels created moods in which I lived for days.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Day Dope Drug Love Reading
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

Aspiration Black Country Limited Live People Redeem Something Somewhere
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
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
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
At the age of twelve I had an attitude toward life that was to endure, that was to make me seek those areas of living that would keep it alive, that was to make me skeptical of everything while seeking everything, tolerant of all and yet critical.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Age Aread Attitude Endure Everything Life Living Others Peaceful Spekticle Suffering Twelve
I didn’t know I was really alive in this world until I felt things hard enough to kill for ’em.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Alive Ems Enough Felt Kill Life Until

I was not leaving the south to forget the south, but so that some day I might understand it

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I was not leaving the south to forget the south, but so that some day I might understand it

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