My grandfather had asked me many times whether I'd like to come to South Carolina with him. He wanted to introduce me to our people down there and I didn't want to go. In those days, the South was still a place where black kids were lynched. Something horrible could happen to you. I've had that feeling my whole life.
John Edgar WidemanWhen it's played the way is supposed to be played, basketball happens in the air; flying, floating, elevated above the floor, levitating the way oppressed peoples of this earth imagine themselves in their dreams.
John Edgar WidemanWe're dreamers and - since we only have one life, and if we screw up we can get in a world of trouble - we're very intense dreamers.
John Edgar WidemanEven in my adult years, when I heard a white person speaking in a Southern accent I was initially suspicious.
John Edgar WidemanI really dislike it when people talk about "experimental," because any good writer is experimental.
John Edgar WidemanI don't like the way question marks look. They're really ugly. They look like blots. At some other point in my life, I might have disliked them because I never knew how to properly apply them. Also commas, and whether they were outside the quote or inside the quote - that all seemed like an unnecessary pain in the ass.
John Edgar Wideman