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At one time if you were a black writer you had to be one of the best writers in the world to be published. You had to be great. Now you can be good. Mediocre. And that's good.

Walter Mosley

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Walter Mosley
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: January 12
Actor
Film Producer
Novelist
Playwright
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
LA
California
Walter Ellis Mosley
World
Mediocre
Writers
Writer
Black
Best
Great
Good
Bedtime
Time
Published

More quotes by Walter Mosley

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I think of writers as explorers, not necessarily as detectives. So there is certainly detecting that is going on - they're explorers.
Walter Mosley
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Writing is almost a place of dreams for me, and I don't have to give up anything to do it.
Walter Mosley
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This is all you have to do. Sit down once a day to the novel and start working without internal criticism, without debilitating expectations, without the need to look at your words as if they were already printed and bound. The beginning is only a draft. Drafts are imperfect by definition.
Walter Mosley
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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
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Your book grows. The early part of your book is growing still while you are writing the later part of your book.
Walter Mosley
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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
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Every day that we wake up is a good day. Every breath that we take is filled with hope for a better day. Every word that we speak is a chance to change what is bad into something good.
Walter Mosley
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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
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Lawyer even sounds like liar.
Walter Mosley
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I think that people don't know how to do anything anymore. My father was a janitor. He could take a car apart and put it back together. He could build a house in the back yard. Today, if you ask people what they know, they say, 'I know how to hire someone.'
Walter Mosley
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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
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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
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There's a resistance for people to talk about things that make them feel guilty. When natural disasters happen, it's easier not to feel guilty about it.
Walter Mosley
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All great popular literature today one day will be seen as great literature and will no longer be seen as popular literature.
Walter Mosley
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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
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A peasant that reads is a prince in waiting.
Walter Mosley
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A lot of people... kind of make heroes that are separate from us, people who are, you know, like... John Wayne and Errol Flynn and, you know, Denzel Washington... people who are different, who are larger than life.
Walter Mosley
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There are as many kinds of love as there are flowers and bugs put together but men and women and their needs are all the same.
Walter Mosley
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The first thing you have to know about writing is that it is something you must do everyday. There are two reasons for this rule: Getting the work done and connecting with your unconscious mind.
Walter Mosley
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It was mid-November 2008. There were pirates taking ships with impunity in African waters, terrorists punching holes in Indian security, China sinking towards depression because Americans were afraid to buy cheap goods for Christmas, and the richest nation in the history of the world was talking about how to keep a budget.
Walter Mosley