When I'm writing, I'm thinking, "Well, this might be a book that I'll always be happy with, and certainly readers will be happy with." But another part of me knows that when I'm past the stage of writing, the book is gonna have good things about it, bad things about it - probably more bad than good. I just know that. That's who I am.
John Edgar WidemanThere are still horrible things that go on because of the myth of race, but we don't have to succumb totally.
John Edgar WidemanOne of the earliest lessons I learned as a child was that if you looked away from something, it might not be there when you looked back.
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 WidemanI'm not a fearful person, but I'm a pretty pessimistic person. So some of my best times are waiting, anticipating. That's the way it always has been with me, whether anticipating a ball game, anticipating a relationship.
John Edgar Wideman