The job of the writer is to take a close and uncomfortable look at the world they inhabit, the world we all inhabit, and the job of the novel is to make the corpse stink.
Walter MosleyRead
Our collective freedom... depends on our ability to defend the rights of others.
Interpretation
Defending the rights of others is essential for ensuring our own freedom.
This quote by Walter Mosley emphasizes the interconnectedness of individual freedoms and the obligation to protect the rights of others in society. It suggests that our own liberty is not fully realized unless we advocate for and stand up for the freedoms of those around us, highlighting the importance of solidarity and mutual respect in a just society.
In practice
In a speech about social justice, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of advocacy.
The job of the writer is to take a close and uncomfortable look at the world they inhabit, the world we all inhabit, and the job of the novel is to make the corpse stink.
At 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.
My father cared about the world he lived in, and so he admitted his confusion about his place in America because he didn't want me to make the same mistake in my life.
Many & most moments go by with us hardly aware of their passage. But love & hate & fear cause time to snag you, to drag you down like a spider's web holding fast to a doomed fly's wings. And when you're caught like that you're aware of every moment & movement & nuance.
We are not trapped or locked up in these bones. No, no. We are free to change. And love changes us. And if we can love one another, we can break open the sky.
All writing is that structure of revelation. There's something you want to find out. If you know everything up front in the beginning, you really don't need to read further if there's nothing else to find out.
Only He who really lived a human life (and I presume that only one did) can fully taste the horror of death.
Hence it demands the emptiness of all the faculties. And when the faculties are empty, then the whole being listens. There is then a direct grasp of what is right there before you that can never be heard with the ear or understood with the mind.
That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.
Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of religion. Rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of science. In other words, religion has become a matter of the heart and science has become a matter of the mind. This regrettable state of affairs does not reflect the fact that physiologically , one cannot exist without the other. Mind and heart are only different aspects of us.
In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell.
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