The life most of us live are lives we are forced to live by immediate needs, influences, and pressures.
Walter MosleyLosing my parents really set me adrift in more ways than one. It's not just losing them. It's losing the possibility of family.
Walter MosleyAt one time if you were a black writer you had to be one of the best writers in the world to be published. You had to be great. Now you can be good. Mediocre. And that's good.
Walter MosleyA man's bookcase will tell you everything you'll ever need to know about him," my father had told me more than once. "A businessman has business books and a dream has novels and books of poetry. Most women like reading about love, and a true revolutionary will have books about the minutiae of overthrowing the oppressor. A person with no books is inconsequential in a modern setting, but a peasant that reads is a prince in waiting.
Walter MosleyPurely the idea of writing a lot of books doesn't make you a great writer, but it might be that the process of doing a lot of writing will make you a much better writer.
Walter MosleyI used to worry about money and career and what was going to happen. How was I gonna succeed or fail in the world? And I thought about it enough that I'm no longer worried about it. I'm not... I don't worry about what's gonna happen in my life. I don't worry about telling me about dying, my own mortality. That's a given.
Walter Mosley