Walter Mosley Quotes - Page 2

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• My father always taught by telling stories about his experiences. His lessons were about morality and art and what insects and birds and human beings had in common. He told me what it meant to be a man and to be a Black man. He taught me about love and responsibility, about beauty, and how to make gumbo.

  Walter Mosley

  Art, Father, Responsibility

  Walter Mosley (2003). “What Next: A Memoir Toward World Peace”, p.10, Black Classic Press

  55 Copy quote

• Black men of our day were never told, The sky's the limit. ... We could aspire to Joe Louis but never Henry Ford.

  Walter Mosley

  Men, Sky, Black

  Walter Mosley (2013). “Little Green: An Easy Rawlins Mystery”, p.174, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  13 Copy quote

• The fear in my heart was like in one of those dreams where you try to run but you can't do it, you can't run because the fear is an anchor in your chest.

  Walter Mosley

  Running, Dream, Fear

  4 Copy quote

• I know how bad a thing it is to be a slave and I know how terrible it was but I don't believe that there's a free person in the whole world that knows how good a cup full of water can taste. Because you have to be a deprived slave, to be kept waiting for your water like we were to really appreciate how good just one swallow can be. When we finally got a drop on our tongues it was like something straight from the hands of the Almighty.

  Walter Mosley

  Appreciation, Believe, Hands

  4 Copy quote

• A man's bookcase will tell you everything you'll ever need to know about him," my father had told me more than once. "A businessman has business books and a dream has novels and books of poetry. Most women like reading about love, and a true revolutionary will have books about the minutiae of overthrowing the oppressor. A person with no books is inconsequential in a modern setting, but a peasant that reads is a prince in waiting.

  Walter Mosley

  Dream, Father, Book

  4 Copy quote

• I would have been completely brainwashed by this lopsided and racist view of the world if it weren't for my father. He was a deep thinker and an irrepressible problem solver. He was a Black Socrates, asking why and then spoiling ready-made replies.

  Walter Mosley

  Father, Asking Why, Views

  Walter Mosley (2003). “What Next: A Memoir Toward World Peace”, p.12, Black Classic Press

  16 Copy quote

• If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day... You don't go to a well once but daily. You don't skip a child's breakfast or forget to wake up in the morning.

  Walter Mosley

  Morning, Children, Writing

  13 Copy quote

• Lawyer even sounds like liar.

  Walter Mosley

  Liars, Sound, Lawyer

  Walter Mosley (2016). “Archibald Lawless, Anarchist at Large”, p.28, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  4 Copy quote

• I believe that a writer has to tell what they think is the truth in a human experience. The truth of the human experience cannot escape the political.

  Walter Mosley

  Believe, Thinking, Political

  Interview with Andrew Dermont, bigthink.com. November 10, 2010.

  7 Copy quote

• Many & most moments go by with us hardly aware of their passage. But love & hate & fear cause time to snag you, to drag you down like a spider's web holding fast to a doomed fly's wings. And when you're caught like that you're aware of every moment & movement & nuance.

  Walter Mosley

  Time, Hate, Wings

  4 Copy quote

• Rest easy and go with the faith you lived with

  Walter Mosley

  Easy, Rest Easy

  Walter Mosley (2005). “Cinnamon Kiss”, Large Print Press

  4 Copy quote

• I used to worry about money and career and what was going to happen. How was I gonna succeed or fail in the world? And I thought about it enough that I'm no longer worried about it. I'm not... I don't worry about what's gonna happen in my life. I don't worry about telling me about dying, my own mortality. That's a given.

  Walter Mosley

  Careers, Worry, Dying

  Interview with Andrew Dermont, bigthink.com. November 10, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

• The first thing you have to know about writing is that it is something you must do every day - every morning or every night, whatever time it is that you have. Ideally, the time you decide on is also the time when you do your best work.

  Walter Mosley

  Morning, Writing, Night

  Walter Mosley (2009). “This Year You Write Your Novel”, p.7, Hachette UK

  7 Copy quote

• Better to listen to the gospel than to a mortal leader.

  Walter Mosley

  Leader, Mortals

  Walter Mosley (2009). “The Tempest Tales: A Novel-in-Stories”, p.114, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• Losing my parents really set me adrift in more ways than one. It's not just losing them. It's losing the possibility of family.

  Walter Mosley

  Parent, Adrift, Way

  21 Copy quote

• Chirren [children] is the most dangerous creatures on the earth, with the exception of young girls between the ages of fifteen and forty-two.

  Walter Mosley

  Girl, Children, Two

  Walter Mosley (2010). “Devil in a Blue Dress: Featuring an Original Easy Rawlins Short Story”, p.115, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• I think that it's important to try to keep reality. I think that Gabriel Garcia Marquez speaks a lot about reality in his magical realism. So I don't think we have to be hyper-realistic. But we have to understand the pressures that undergird the lives of the characters within that novel.

  Walter Mosley

  Character, Reality, Thinking

  Source: bigthink.com

  7 Copy quote

• The way I write is this: I write about a thousand words a day, a little bit more. The next morning, I read those thousand words and cursorily edit that. Then I write the next thousand. I do that all the way to the end of the book and then I reread the book quite a few times, editing as go through.

  Walter Mosley

  Morning, Book, Writing

  Source: bigthink.com

  4 Copy quote

• Your book grows. The early part of your book is growing still while you are writing the later part of your book.

  Walter Mosley

  Book, Writing, Growing

  Source: bigthink.com

  4 Copy quote

• My experience of people in dementia is that a lot of their personality, a lot of their knowledge, a lot of their experience is still there but there's not a direction connection that they can just reach out and get it and then bring it back.

  Walter Mosley

  People, Personality, Connections

  Source: bigthink.com

  4 Copy quote

• Susan Straight finds LA's secret heart in Between Heaven and Here and with a sleight of hand only the masters have, she creates an alley, a neighborhood, a history that is as rich and tragic as any Shakespearean tale.

  Walter Mosley

  Heart, Hands, Heaven

  8 Copy quote

• I laugh, that there's a certain kind of cyclical nature to life and that I don't have to worry because whatever isn't there right now, it's coming back again.

  Walter Mosley

  Worry, Laughing, Kind

  Big Think Interview with Andrew Dermont, bigthink.com. November 10, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

• Comic books were telling me what life was about. This was how I kind of entered life, through fiction.

  Walter Mosley

  Book, Fiction, Kind

  Source: bigthink.com

  4 Copy quote

• I write every day and I just love doing it. It's just... it's just a wonderful thing. Some of my stories work, some of them don't work. Some of them are wild and I love them, but they certainly don't fit into any kind of a normal system that I know about.

  Walter Mosley

  Writing, Normal, Stories

  Source: bigthink.com

  4 Copy quote

• My job is writing for people to enjoy and then writing about a broader and a deeper world.

  Walter Mosley

  Jobs, Writing, People

  Source: bigthink.com

  4 Copy quote

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