“ Their constant outward-looking, their mania for radios, cars, and a thousand other trinkets made them dream and fix their eyes upon the trash of life, made it impossible for them to learn a language w… Richard Wright
“ I feel that for white America to understand the significance of the problem of the Negro will take a bigger and tougher America than any we have yet known. I feel that America's past is too shallow, h… Richard Wright
“ Those Garveyites I knew could never understand why I liked them but would never follow them, and I pitied them too much to tell them that they could never achieve their goal, that Africa was owned by… Richard Wright
“ If I were a member of the class that rules, I would post men in all the neighborhoods of the nation, not to spy upon or club rebellious workers, not to break strikes or disrupt unions; but to ferret o… Richard Wright
“ Never had I felt so much the slave as when I scoured those stone steps each afternoon. Working against time, I would wet five steps, sprinkle soap powder, then a white doctor or a nurse would come and… Richard Wright
“ I felt that it was unfair that my lack of a few pounds of flesh should deprive me of a chance at a good job but I had long ago emotionally rejected the world in which I lived and my reaction was: Well… Richard Wright
“ I didn't know I was really alive in this world until I felt things hard enough to kill for 'em... Richard Wright
“ Ought one to surrender to authority even if one believed that that authority was wrong? If the answer was yes, then I knew that I would always be wrong, because I could never do it. Then how could one… Richard Wright
“ I was seized by doubt. Should I have come here? But going back was impossible. I had fled a known terror, and perhaps I could cope with this unknown terror that lay ahead. Richard Wright
“ If you possess enough courage to speak out what you are, you will find you are not alone. Richard Wright
“ I would make it known that the real danger does not stem from those who seek to grab their share of wealth through force, or from those who try to defend their property through violence, for both of t… Richard Wright
“ The white folks like for us to be religious, then they can do what they want to with us. Richard Wright
“ They argued about the weather, sports, sex, war, race, politics, and religion; neither of them knew the subjects they debated, but it seemed that the less they knew the better the could argue. Richard Wright
“ There were many more folk ditties, some mean, others filthy, all of them cruel. No one ever thought of questioning our right to do this; our mothers and parents generally approved, either actively or… Richard Wright
“ Rather, I plead with you to see a mode of life in our midst, a mode of life stunted and distorted, but possessing its own laws and claims, an existence of men growing out of the soil prepared by the c… Richard Wright
“ You asked me questions nobody ever asked me before. You knew that I was a murderer two times over, but you treated me like a man... Richard Wright
“ At the age of twelve, before I had had one full year of formal schooling, I had a conception of life that no experience would ever erase, a predilection for what was real that no argument could ever g… Richard Wright
