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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

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James McBride
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: September 4
Jazz Musician
Journalist
Novelist
Saxophonist
Screenwriter
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Nothing
Majored
Giving
College
Much
Books
Read
Wish
History
Give
Book

More quotes by James McBride

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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Newt Gingrich wrote a novel, and he's a short story. Bill Clinton wrote a biography, and he's a novel.
James McBride
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I'm not interested in food. It's just fuel.
James McBride
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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
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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
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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
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If you have the material it will form itself as a kind of connective tissue.
James McBride
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Until you expose the cancer, you can't fix it.
James McBride
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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.
James McBride
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As a journalist, the details always tell the story.
James McBride
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You have to choose between what the world expects of you and what you want for yourself.
James McBride
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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
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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
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First person narrative is a very effective tool but you have to know as a writer how to make it work.
James McBride
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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