We would not have been a successful family without my father and stepfather, who were working-class men with better dreams for their children. We just wore them out.
James McbrideRead
I'm trying to get Americans to see that we're all pretty much the same. I believe it; I was taught God doesn't have a color. I want to better the planet a little bit.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the shared humanity among all people, regardless of race or background.
James McBride's quote reflects the belief that at our core, all people share similar values, emotions, and aspirations. By highlighting the concept that 'God doesn't have a color,' he advocates for unity and understanding across diverse races, encouraging a collective effort to improve the world we live in.
In practice
In a speech about community service, I included this quote to inspire collective action.
We would not have been a successful family without my father and stepfather, who were working-class men with better dreams for their children. We just wore them out.
Writing for me is cutting out the fat and getting to the meaning.
I felt like a Tinker toy kid building my own self out of one of those toy building sets; for as she laid her life before me, I reassembled the tableau of her words like a picture puzzle, and as I did, so my own life was rebuilt.
Sometimes it seemed like the truth was a bandy-legged soul who dashed from one side of the world to the other and I could never find him.
It would be nice if we redefined what we meant by 'war story.' If you're making $15,000 a year living in a certain area of Portland, trying to make it with three kids and no husband, that's a kind of war.
When my mother left home, her family sat shivah for her, more because my father was not Jewish than because he was black.
Suffering can make saints of people as they learn patience, long-suffering and self-mastery.
The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave. Otherwise he will move in a world of the dead. He can only gain that conception through personal experience, and he can only use his personal experiences when he is a genius.
I feel a whole country growing inside me, thousands of years, millions of people, stupid, crazy, shrewd people, and all of them me. I never felt like that before, I never felt that there was anything inside me, even myself.
The Way of Heaven does not complete, and yet it skillfully achieves victory. It does not speak, and yet it skillfully responds to things. It comes to you without your invitation.
I'll be a story in your head. But that's OK. We're all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? Because it was, you know; it was the best.
Sincerity is the same in a corner alone, as it is before the face of the world. It knows not how to wear two vizards, one for an appearance before men, and another for a short snatch in a corner; but it must have God, and be with him in the duty of prayer. It is not lip-labour that it doth regard, for it is the heart that God looks at, and that which sincerity looks at, and that which prayer comes from, if it be that prayer which is accompanied with sincerity.
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