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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

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
Make up your mind, Snail! You are half inside your house, And halfway out!
RICHARD WRIGHT

Half Halfway House Inside Make Mind Small
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
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
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
Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Book Clinched Environment Fail Nourish Support
In me was shaping a yearning for a kind of consciousness.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Consciousness Heart Kind Light Night Shape Yearning
Reading was like a drug, a dope. The novels created moods in which I lived for days.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Day Dope Drug Love Reading
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
Reluctantly, he comes to the conclusion that to account for his book is to account for his life.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Account Book Conclusion Life Reluctantly
I listened, vaguely knowing now that I had committed some awful wrong that I could not undo, that I had uttered words I could not recall even though I ached to nullify them.
RICHARD WRIGHT

Ache Another Awful Chance Committed Done Knowing Listen Some Undo Vaguely
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
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
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
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
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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