American - Writer | June 14, 1941 -
Writing 'Hoop Roots' was a substitute or a surrogate activity. I can't play anymore - my body won't cooperate - so in the writing of the book, I was looking to tell a good story about my life and about basketball, but I was also looking to entertain myself the way that I entertain myself when I play.
John Edgar Wideman
LifeGoodMyselfRootsWritingBook
I wish I had time to listen to music more.
MusicTimeWishListenMoreI Wish
I don't understand why black people have been so quiescent, so passive over the hundreds of years of American history. Why hasn't there been more violence, more armed struggle? I know answers to some of that, but it seems to me it's an issue of faith, an abiding faith in some sort of great beyond, or great spirit, or even in the American dream.
FaithHistoryGreatStrugglePeople
I often want things to make definite statements. If I order onions sliced thinly on my hamburger, I don't want them to come out sort of medium. But that doesn't mean it's a reasonable desire, in all things.
DesireWantMeanOutOrderThings
I feel compelled not to pass on a vision of bleakness, destruction or cynicism. I want to tell the truth as I see it, but I also have to believe that individuals - my kids, your kids, whoever - can do something about it, and I want to show the ways in which they can do something about it.
TruthVisionBelieveFeelWantSee
I don't make that hard and fast distinction between political and nonpolitical writing. I write about what bothers me.
MeWritingPoliticalFastWrite
What basketball expresses is what jazz expresses. Certain cultural predispositions to make art. All African-American art has a substratum, or baseline, of improvisation and spontaneity. You find that in both basketball and jazz.
ArtBasketballYouFindJazzMake
For African-American people, I am in the business of inventing a reality that gives a different perspective - on history, on crime, on art, on love.
LoveBusinessHistoryArtI Am
Writers transform: they throw a hand grenade into the notion of reality that people carry around in their heads. That's very dangerous, very destructive, but not to do it means you are satisfied with the status quo - and that's a kind of danger as well, because a kind of violence is already being perpetuated.
PeopleRealityViolenceYouKind
Real change is always violent, but it may hurt a lot less than what's in place before the violence occurs.
ChangeHurtViolencePlaceRealMay
All my life, I've been very aware of my body. I have always used it as a gauge of things. When I look at a person, and I see their body, that's the beginning of knowledge about them. Furthermore, I respect the body.
LifeKnowledgeRespectBeginningSee
I have written about the women around me. My ancestors, my relatives, lovers. It was a way of trying to make it all make sense.
WomenMeTryingWayAncestorsSense
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