Quotes on Like

I was raised in Harlem. I never found a book that took place in Harlem. I never had a church like mine in a book. I never had people like the people I knew. People who could not find their lives in books and celebrated felt bad about themselves. I needed to write to include the lives of these young people.

I think kids in every minority need to see people like themselves in books; that's an acknowledgment of their existence on this planet and in this society.

I think it's important to move people beyond just dreaming into doing. They have to be able to see that you are just like them, and you made it.

In the child, consciousness rises out of the depths of unconscious psychic life, at first like separate islands, which gradually unite to form a 'continent,' a continuous landmass of consciousness. Progressive mental development means, in effect, extension of consciousness.

I'm not 'Grace.' That album is like a brick onto itself. It's like a coffin that I put certain feelings and observations in so that they can be capsulized forever. I wanted to put them there so I would be free to move on.

When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a room full of dukes.

I had become so accustomed to succeeding that I no longer even remembered what it was like to fail.

They say that a kingdom is like a pyramid: the king on top and the people below. But in this country, it's upside down.

When I was15 years old, I couldn't look at the NFL and look on TV and say, 'Boy, there's a head coach, African American. That's something I'd like to do.'

I think the next thing I publish will be for children, but I don't really want to be held to that because I also know what my next book for adults will be, and I really like that, too, so it depends. I've always had more than one thing going.

As a child I sometimes used to travel to the West Bank to visit my family, so I know what the checkpoints felt like. I knew what it was like to live under occupation.

The students that, like the wild animal being prepared for its tricks in the circus called 'life', expects only training as sketched above, will be severely disappointed: by his standards he will learn next to nothing.

I think it is the height of ignorance to believe that the sexual act is an independent function necessary like sleeping or eating. Seeing, therefore, that I did not desire more children, I began to strive after self-control. There was endless difficulty in the task.

I got a few marriage proposals in my 20s. I just wasn't ready. I just knew if I committed, I would've wound up doing something wrong, messing it up. I still felt like I had some living to do.

He was what I often think is a dangerous thing for a statesman to be - a student of history; and like most of those who study history, he learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.

You think you would react one way when a situation develops and, and when the sharp shells are flying, you don't quite stand up like you think you might.

You can't just shuffle people around like they're deck chairs on a ship. You have to help them change their lives, and you have to give them the requisite resources to do so.

I'm obviously always interested in the dancer who's an athlete and vice versa. I expect dancers to be in condition like an athlete is and to challenge themselves in the same way, to the same physical degree.

You need to keep something for yourself. As a writer, I feel that even more strongly. I feel like I need to be able to freely observe the world. That's the way I like to move through the world; I don't need to be the focus of attention. If I am, it impairs my ability to write and to do what I do.

Career-wise, there are so many things where you don't get what you think you want. I've had to make space for, 'Do I let that debilitate me and make me feel bad about myself? And make me feel like I need to change myself in some way?' Because I think changing myself is very different from growing and learning.

We think the government should be pushing for more encryption. That it's a great thing. You know, it's like the sun and the air and the water.