Each day when you see us black folk upon the dusty land of your farm or upon the hard pavement of your city streets, you usually take it for granted and think you know us, but our history is far stranger than you suspect, and we are not what we seem.
Richard WrightIt would have been impossible for me to have told anyone what I derived from these novels, for it was nothing less than a sense of life itself.
Richard WrightIf a man confessed anything on his death bed, it was the truth; for no man could stare death in the face and lie.
Richard Wrightthere are times when life's ends are so raveled that reason and sense cry out that we stop and gather them together again before we can proceed
Richard WrightI was leaving the South to fling myself into the unknown . . . I was taking a part of the South to transplant in alien soil, to see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns and, perhaps, to bloom
Richard WrightI listened, vaguely knowing now that I had committed some awful wrong that I could not undo, that I had uttered words I could not recall even though I ached to nullify them, kill them, turn back time to the moment before I had talked so that I could have another chance to save myself.
Richard Wright