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As A Journalist, I Never Critiqued Anyone. I Never Review Books. I've Never Felt Qualified As A Musician To Say Whether Someone Is A Good Musician Or A Bad Musician. What Happens With Black Writers And Black Artists Is That If You're Critiqued, For Example, By A Black Historian Who Wants To Get His Name On The Cover Of "the New York Times," And He Says Something, Like, Wacky, Well, He'll Get His Name On The Cover Of "the New York Times" And He Might Get Tenure, And Your Career Suffers.

-James McBride

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As A Journalist, I

James McBride

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As A Journalist, I Never Critiqued Anyone. I Never Review Books. I've Never Felt Qualified As A Musician To Say Whether Someone Is A Good Musician Or A Bad Musician. What Happens With Black Writers And Black Artists Is That If You're Critiqued, For Example, By A Black Historian Who Wants To Get His Name On The Cover Of "the New York Times," And He Says Something, Like, Wacky, Well, He'll Get His Name On The Cover Of "the New York Times" And He Might Get Tenure, And Your Career Suffers.

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God Is The Color Of Water. Water Doesn't Have A Color.

...since I Was A Little Boy, She Had Always Wanted Me To Go. She Was Always Sending Me Off On A Bus Someplace, To Elementary School, To Camp, To Relatives In Kentucky, To College. She Pushed Me Away From Her Just As She'd Pushed My Elder Siblings Away When We Lived In New York, Literally Shoving Them Out The Front Door When They Left For College.

The Thing That I Do Is That When I Fail, I Just Keep Quiet About It. I Just Let It Go. It's Done. I Just Go To The Next Thing. I Don't Complain, I Don't Go To - I Pick My Battles Very, Very Judiciously, And I Just Assume That There's Good In The Heart Of Everybody.

I Wish All Critics, No Matter Their Color, Were More Sophisticated When It Comes To The Moral Questions A Film Like 'st. Anna' Is Trying To Raise.

I Think Comedy Allows People To Accept The More Difficult Parts Of History. And History, If It's Presented Wrong, Is Just Very Depressing, Particularly The History Of Slavery. If Slavery Is Presented Properly, It's A Great Story. But I Think That Within The Commercial World Of Storytelling In Which I Live, There Haven't Been Many Strong Works That Discuss Slavery In Ways That Are Palatable And Funny And Interesting To The Reader.

I'd Like To Do Something Involving Jazz. But Books Are How I Earn My Living, And I'd Like To Stay With The Horse I Rode In On.

I'm Trying To Educate People About Things That I Believe Are Right, And Some Of The Things That I Believe Are Right Might Not Be Right, So I Live In Constant Self-doubt. I Think That Creates A Kind Of Search That You Have To Have, And It Prevents You From Doing A Lot Of Stuff That You Would Normally Do.

I Asked Her If I Was Black Or White. She Replied "you Are A Human Being. Educate Yourself Or You'll Be A Nobody!

There Are Two Responses To Really Awful Things. One Is To Lament And Say, "oh My God, Oh Lord." And The Other Is To Laugh At It A Little Bit, Try Your Best To Deal With It And, If You Can, Forget About It As Soon As Possible.

As A Journalist, I Never Critiqued Anyone. I Never Review Books. I've Never Felt Qualified As A Musician To Say Whether Someone Is A Good Musician Or A Bad Musician. What Happens With Black Writers And Black Artists Is That If You're Critiqued, For Example, By A Black Historian Who Wants To Get His Name On The Cover Of "the New York Times," And He Says Something, Like, Wacky, Well, He'll Get His Name On The Cover Of "the New York Times" And He Might Get Tenure, And Your Career Suffers.

My Parents Were Nonmaterialistic. They Believed That Money Without Knowledge Was Worthless, That Education Tempered With Religion Was The Way To Climb Out Of Poverty In America, And Over The Years They Were Proven Right.

Newt Gingrich Wrote A Novel, And He's A Short Story. Bill Clinton Wrote A Biography, And He's A Novel.

My Whole Family Was - We Grew Up In New York, But All My Relatives And All My Father And Stepfather's Family, They Were All From The South. So I Like That Old Black Voice, And I Love The Sort Of Old Black Man With A Corncob Pipe, Sitting There Telling A Whopper.

I'm One Of The Few Black Writers, Or African American Writers, Who Managed To Work My Way Through The System So That It Has Allowed Me To Speak In A Kind Of Free Way. But Most African American Writers Don't Have That. They Don't Have That Opportunity, They Don't Have That.

African American

When You Walk The Significant Land, The Land Speaks To You - Even If It's 150 Years Later. You Walk The Earth And Good Things Happen. There's Always Something To Be Said For Going To A Spot, Even If There's Nothing There. That's Why You Have A Brain, Your Mind Moves To Other Places When You're Standing At An Important Spot.

Family Is The Last And Greatest Discovery. It Is Our Last Miracle.

The Act Of Choosing What To Place In Your Piece When You're A Historian Or A Non-fiction Writer Already Renders It Into Fiction For Someone Else. In Some Ways Fiction Comes A Lot Closer To Reality. When You Start Talking About Something As Brutal As Slavery And Life In The American West, It's Really Important To Take A Non- Judgmental Stance. We Romanticize A Great Deal About Life In The American West, But I Thank God I Wasn't Living During That Time. No Matter What Color You Were, It Was Rough, Crude, Tough Living.

I Grew Up In The Church, And So I Feel That God Gave Me Certain Things To Do, And I'm Lucky Enough To Kind Of Have Figured Those Things Out. I Just Don't Want To Die Not Having Tried To Help Somebody Else With What I Know.

But What Difference Does It Make? ... When You're Mixed, You See How Absurd This Business Of Race Is.

My Family Is My Career.

The Good Lord Bird Don't Run In A Flock. He Flies Alone. You Know Why? He's Searching. Looking For The Right Tree. And When He Sees That Tree, That Dead Tree That's Taking All The Nutrition And Good Things From The Forest Floor. He Goes Out And He Gnaws At It, And He Gnaws At It Till The Thing Gets Tired And It Falls Down. And The Dirt From It Raises Other Trees. It Gives Them Good Things To Eat. It Makes 'em Strong. Gives 'em Life. And The Circle Goes 'round.

As A Journalist, The Details Always Tell The Story.

Testosterone Is A Sex Hormone, And I Think It Is The Most Social Of Hormones. The Major Social Effect Of Testosterone Is To Orient Us Toward Issues Of Sex And Power. By The End Of Puberty Testosterone Levels In Males Are 8 To 10 Times Higher Than In Females, But Decrease With Age.

I Can Write Anywhere Really. I Have A Hard Time Writing When The Birds Are Tweeting And The Brooks Are Running Outside. I've Tried That Several Times, For Months At A Time, Trying To Write In A Quiet, Wonderful Place Where Birds Are Twittering And Coffee's Brewing. And Nothing Happens. But If I'm In An Old Dump Like My Old Apartment And I Can't Find My Fingernail Clippers And Nothing's Working Except The Old Tea Maker, That's Just Great. You Always Have To Find And Live In A Place That's A Little Uncomfortable When You're A Writer. You Need A Burr In Your Side.

Until You Expose The Cancer, You Can't Fix It.

You Know What Needs To Be Done When You're A Writer. You Know What The Job Is, Particularly If You're An African American Writer, Or If You Deal With People, Or If Your Subjects Are Poor People Or People Who Need Voice. So You Don't Really Need To Know Whether Or Not You Are Doing The Right Thing. What You Have To Be Wary Of If You're Doing The Right Thing To The Right Level That Will Surpass Your Own Life. I'm Hoping That My Work Will Surpass My Own Life.

I Put Headlights In Ford Vans. I Still Drive A Ford.

I Think A Lot Of The History We've Read Up To This Point, Some Of It Is Just Off. It's Written With The Same Prejudice That Certain Networks Have When They Report The News Of The Day.

Sometimes It Seemed Like The Truth Was A Bandy-legged Soul Who Dashed From One Side Of The World To The Other And I Could Never Find Him.

If You're Going To Cheat And Take People's History And You're Not Writing The Bible, You Ain't Really So Great. But If You Try To Do It In A Way That Doesn't Hurt Too Many People, Then You Probably Can Get Out Of Bed In The Morning And Look At Yourself In The Mirror.

I Felt Like A Tinker Toy Kid Building My Own Self Out Of One Of Those Toy Building Sets; For As She Laid Her Life Before Me, I Reassembled The Tableau Of Her Words Like A Picture Puzzle, And As I Did, So My Own Life Was Rebuilt.

It's A Real Stumper To Sit Around And Try To Think In Your Own Head, But When You Go Into Somebody Else's Head That Takes The Foot Off The Breaks. You Can Think In Someone Else's Head.

The Black Church Will Accept Anybody.

Slavery Was A Web Of Relationships, And If People Knew How Thick The Whole Business Was, They Would Not Make Fun Of People Like Harriet Tubman. They Would Understand How Intelligent She Was And How Sharp.

It's The Same Old Story. Nothing In This World Happens Unless White Folks Says It Happens. And Therein Lies The Problem Of Being A Professional Black Storyteller - Writer, Musician, Filmmaker.

But At The End Of The Day, There Are Some Questions That Have No Answers, And Then One Answer That Has No Question: Love Rules The Game. Every Time. All The Time. That’s What Counts.

The End Of The Day

The Man Was The Finest Preacher. He Could Make A Frog Stand Up Straight And Get Happy With Jesus.

First Person Narrative Is A Very Effective Tool But You Have To Know As A Writer How To Make It Work.

The Basic Thing Is To Be Humble, And Pretend You're A Bartender In The Tavern Of Life. Don't Get Too Comfortable And Don't Really Listen To Anybody Else. Don't Stand Around With A Bunch Of Writers And Talk About Writing. You Know When You See Plumbers At A Plumbers Convention, Usually They're Not Talking About Plumbing: They're Talking About Whatever It Is That Two Men Happen To Talk About. They're Talking About Sports, Their Wives And Children. I Just Tell My Students, Don't Talk About Writing Too Much, Just Go Out And Do It. Find Out Whatever You Need To Get To The Mainland.

You're Not A Black Man. You're A Human Being In God's Eyes. So When You Sit Down To Talk To Someone And You Talk To Them In Really Intelligent Terms, You Ask Difficult Questions, There's A Militancy That's Assigned To You Without You Asking For It, Because You Are Simply Judged By What You Look Like. If You're A White Person Asking The Same Questions, You'd Be One Of These Cnn Guys And Say How Brilliant He Is. That Doesn't Work For You, Because This Is The World We Live In.

I Just Read History Books. I Read Nothing But History Books. They Have So Much To Give; I Wish I'd Majored In History In College.

I'm A Better Musician Now, And I Rarely Practice Because Age Has Taught Me The Value Of Economy. And I Think I'm A Better Writer Now Because I Don't Waste As Much Time, Dilly-dallying And Sassafrassin' And Sloop And Sloppin' And Frying Eggs. When You Start Writing, Half The Time You're Just Saying Howdy To The Page. My Process Now Is A Little More Lean And Muscular. I Don't Waste A Lot Of Time. When I Had Kids, I Learned How Much Time I Had Before, And How Much Time You Actually Need To Do Something. If You Don't Have Time, You'll Just Do It And Get It Done.

When You're Interviewing Someone, Even Your Mother - You Have To Sort Of Deal With You Have To Get Some Objective Space From Yourself And The Person But You Also Have To Find What's The Best Way To Get The Information From That Person.

Music And Writing Do Fold Together In The Sense That You Have To Have A Certain Level Of Skill In Order To Execute Your Ideas And You Need A Medium. The Idea Of Improvisation Is One That Many Writers Fall Into, And I Improvise A Great Deal When I'm Writing, But There's A Structural Framework That I'm Working Around, And That Takes More Time Than The Actual Writing. Once The Characters Get To Yapping And Talking, They'll Move From One Room To The Next, And I Just Have To Make Sure That The House Is Built. That's Really Hard, That's The Kind Of Thing That Sits With You All Day Long.

It Was Always So Hot, And Everyone Was So Polite, And Everything Was All Surface But Underneath It Was Like A Bomb Waiting To Go Off. I Always Felt That Way About The South, That Beneath The Smiles And Southern Hospitality And Politeness Were A Lot Of Guns And Liquor And Secrets.

I Could Have Been, And May One Day Well Be A High School English Teacher, Because I've Been Given So Much I Just Feel Like I Have To Give Something Back. The Fact That Some People Consider My Work To Be Good Or Strong, It's Nice, But I Know In My Heart That If It's Not Coming - Oftentimes It's Probably Not Coming From The Best Place.

Writing For Me Is Cutting Out The Fat And Getting To The Meaning.

There Are Some Really Great Books That Have Been Written About Slavery, But I Don't Think That The Discourse About It In Society Has Been Very Accurate Or Healthy. I Don't Think We've Come Up With Ways To Tell It That Don't Insult People Or Hit Them In The Wrong Way. Part Of The Problem Is That Most People Don't Really Understand What Slavery Was Anyway. Most White People Didn't Own Slaves. Slavery Was A Way Of Life, Just Like Driving Cars Is A Way Of Life Now. It Doesn't Mean That It Was Right.

Put Yourself In God’s Hands And You Can’t Go Wrong.

I'm Proud Of 'miracle At St. Anna' And I Loved It; There's No Question In My Mind It's As Good As Any Movie That Came Out In 2007.

God Gived You The Seed. But The Watering And Caring Of That Seed Is Up To You.

My Black Friends Never Asked Me How Much Money I Made, Or What School My Children Went To, Or Anything Like That. They Just Said, "come As You Are."

Educate Yourself Or You'll Be A Nobody!

The Question Of Religion In Black America Is Something Filmmakers Don't Want To Touch.

If You're A Creative Person, You'd Better Not Read What People Write About You, Because If It's Good It'll Blow Your Head Up And It'll Force You Not To Take The Subway And You'll Start Taking Cabs, And You'd Better Stay Around People, And If It's Bad, It Just Hurts Your Feelings So Much It Discourages You.

You Have To Choose Between What The World Expects Of You And What You Want For Yourself.

There's Such A Big Difference Between Being Dead And Alive, I Told Myself, The Greatest Gift That Anyone Can Give Anyone Else Is Life. And The Greatest Sin A Person Can Do To Another Is To Take Away That Life. Next To That, All The Rules And Religions In The World Are Secondary; Mere Words And Beliefs That People Choose To Believe And Kill And Hate By. My Life Won't Be Lived That Way, And Neither, I Hope, Will My Children's.

There Has To Be Some Mystery In Life, Because The Joy Of Being A Writer And The Joy Of Being A Musician Is The Joy Of Discovery. I Don't Want Someone Discovering For Me What I Should Be Discovering On My Own. If A Person Is Discovering For Me, Then They're Living For Me. It's My Responsibility, Indeed It's My Privilege, To Go Out And Discover The World For Myself.

So Sweet And Precious Is Family Life.

If You Have The Material It Will Form Itself As A Kind Of Connective Tissue.

Be Kind To The Living.

It Is Hard To Find Romance In The Present Because There's Nothing Left To The Imagination.

I'm Not Interested In Food. It's Just Fuel.

I Come To The Understanding That Maybe What Was On The Inside Was More Important, And That Your Outer Covering Didn't Count So Much As Folks Thought It Did, Colored Or White, Man Or Woman.

People Don't Realize You're Blowing Over Changes, Time Changes, Harmony, Different Keys. I Mark A Point In My Solo Where It's Got To Peak At Point D I Go To A, B, C D Then I'm Home.

What Humor Allows You To Do Is To Let The Past Go With Less Pain. It's A Healing Element. It Releases Some Of The Pain From The Shotgun Wound.

Some Things In This World Just Ain't Meant To Be, Not In The Times We Want 'em To, And The Heart Has To Hold It In This World As A Remembrance, A Promise For The World That's To Come. There's A Prize At The End Of All Of It, But Still, That's A Heavy Load To Bear.

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