black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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
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
It was not a matter of believing or disbelieving what I read, but of feeling something new, of being affected by something that made the look of the world different.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Affect Being Believe Different Disbelieve Feeling Matter New Something
I did not know if the story was factually true or not, but it was emotionally true […].
RICHARD WRIGHT

Emotionally Factually Knows Stories True
Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Book Clinched Environment Fail Nourish Support
I could endure the hunger. I had learned to live with hate.
RICHARD WRIGHT

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

Book Environment Fail Support
Goddamnit, look! We live here and they live there.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Black Goddamnit Jail Life White
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
Love grows from stable relationships, shared experience, loyalty, devotion, trust.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Devotion Experience Grow Love Loyalty Relationship
Somewhere in the dead of the southern night my life had switched onto the wrong track and without my knowing it.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Dead Know might Something Southern Switch Track Wrong
Make up your mind, Snail! You are half inside your house, And halfway out!
RICHARD WRIGHT

Half Halfway House Inside Make Mind Small
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
The artist must bow to the monster of his own imagination.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Art Artist Halloween Imagination Monster
Reading was like a drug, a dope. The novels created moods in which I lived for days.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Day Dope Drug Love Reading
He had lived and acted on the assumption that he was alone, and now he saw that he had not been. What he had done made others suffer.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Act Alone Assumption Been Blood Live Long Saw Suffering
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
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
I made things happen within. Because my environment was bare and bleak,
RICHARD WRIGHT

Bleak Environment Happen Made Thing Vbare
I endowed it with unlimited potentialities, redeemed it for the sake of my own hungry and cloudy yearning.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Cloudy Endowed Hungry Own Potentialities Redeem Ultimate 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
The locomotive of my heart was rushing down a dangerously steep slope, heading for a collision, heedless of the warning red lights that blinked all about me, the sirens and the ells and the screams that filled the air.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Ait Blink Collision Down Fill Heading Heedless Red Rush Scream Steep

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Richard Wright Quotes