Quote

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.

James McBride

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

James McBride
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: September 4
Jazz Musician
Journalist
Novelist
Saxophonist
Screenwriter
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Problem
Writer
Therein
Nothing
Says
Storyteller
World
Lying
Filmmaker
Story
Professional
White
Folks
Black
Musician
Happens
Lies
Stories
Unless

More quotes by James McBride

Image
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.
James McBride
Image
So sweet and precious is family life.
James McBride
Image
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.
James McBride
Image
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.
James McBride
Image
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.
James McBride
Image
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.
James McBride
Image
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.
James McBride
Image
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.
James McBride
Image
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.
James McBride
Image
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.
James McBride
Image
First person narrative is a very effective tool but you have to know as a writer how to make it work.
James McBride
Image
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.
James McBride
Image
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.
James McBride
Image
As a journalist, the details always tell the story.
James McBride
Image
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.
James McBride
Image
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.
James McBride
Image
If you have the material it will form itself as a kind of connective tissue.
James McBride
Image
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.
James McBride
Image
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.
James McBride
Image
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.
James McBride