black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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
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
Anything seemed possible, likely, feasible, because I wanted everything to be possible… Because I had no power to make things happen outside of me in the objective world.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Anything Environment Happen Objective Outside Possible Sake Seem Want World
We had our own civilization in Africa before we were captured and carried off to this land.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Capture Carried Country Cultivation Iron Ivory Land Medicine Own
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
We black and they white. They got things and we ain’t. They do things and we can’t. It’s just like livin’ in jail.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Black Country Jail Living People Thing White
All literature is protest.
RICHARD WRIGHT

All Literature Protest
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
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
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
Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Integrity Men Realization Self Strive
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
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
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
We had our own literature, our own systems of law, religion, medicine, science, and education.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Education Literature Medicine Own Religion Science System

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Richard Wright Quotes