We had our own civilization in Africa before we were captured and carried off to this land. We smelted iron, danced, made music and folk poems; we sculpted, worked in glass, spun cotton and wool, wove baskets and cloth. We invented a medium of exchange, mined silver and gold, made pottery and cutlery, we fashioned tools and utensils of brass, bronze, ivory, quartz, and granite. We had our own literature, our own systems of law, religion, medicine, science, and education.
Richard WrightI was not leaving the south to forget the south, but so that some day I might understand it
Richard WrightI didn't know I was really alive in this world until I felt things hard enough to kill for 'em.
Richard WrightWhenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books.
Richard WrightIt was not a matter of believing or disbelieving what I read, but of feeling something new, of being affected by something that made the look of the world different.
Richard WrightThe more closely the author thinks of why he wrote, the more he comes to regard his imagination as a kind of self-generating cement which glued his facts together, and his emotions as a kind of dark and obscure designer of those facts. Reluctantly, he comes to the conclusion that to account for his book is to account for his life.
Richard Wright