James McBride Zitate – Sprüche auf Englisch mit Übersetzung

Zitat des Tages von James McBride:

First person narrative is a very effective tool but you have to know as a writer how to make it work.

I don't want to read a book that's depressing.

James McBride

As a journalist, the details always tell the story.

James McBride

As a writer, you have to be near people and hear stuff. I'm a hamburger and cheese kind of fellow; I'm not Henry David Thoreau.

James McBride

The starting point of all great jazz has got to be format, a language that you can work within that, in some ways, is much tighter than the blues or even gospel. It's all working towards the same destination - the difference being that Miles Davis flew there, and I'm still taking the subway.

James McBride

If you have the material it will form itself as a kind of connective tissue.

James McBride

The question of religion in black America is something filmmakers don't want to touch.

James McBride

When you're interviewing someone, even your mother - you have to sort of deal with you have to get some objective space from yourself and the person but you also have to find what's the best way to get the information from that person.

James McBride

My family is my career.

James McBride

You have to be able to toss the thing out. You can't fall in love with your characters, and you have to know when to fight - and when to quit.

James McBride

When I was younger, I was ambitious. Now I'm not ambitious anymore. I just want to be happy. Does that make sense?

James McBride

My goal is to be able to fill out one of those forms that asks 'Who are you?' and be able to just put 'Human being,' you know?

James McBride

You can play Mozart all you want and pretend that it gives you class, but what is class, you know? Class is a bus driver on the M103 who gets off the bus to help somebody on board even though he's tired, he's exhausted, and he's two months behind on his mortgage. That's real class.

James McBride

I don't like a bunch of writers sitting around, puffing smoke, they like this book, he wrote this - tell me a dirty joke, you know. It's just not my style, I've never been that kind of person.

James McBride

I used to walk through the Old Times Square fearing for my life. Now I wouldn't be caught dead there.

James McBride

It's the same old story. Nothing in this world happens unless white folks says it happens. And therein lies the problem of being a professional black storyteller - writer, musician, filmmaker.

James McBride

You can't write just anything. Your story needs structure.

James McBride

I'm not one of those who can listen to music and write. I need the door closed. Windows shut. Facing the wall. No birds tweeting, views of nature, and so forth.

James McBride

Writing for me is cutting out the fat and getting to the meaning.

James McBride

A daily dose of Nietzsche goes a long way.

James McBride

The black church will accept anybody.

James McBride

People don't realize you're blowing over changes, time changes, harmony, different keys. I mark a point in my solo where it's got to peak at point D I go to A, B, C D then I'm home.

James McBride

Historical novels are hard to do for the general public for commercial writers like myself.

James McBride

I'm proud of 'Miracle at St. Anna' and I loved it; there's no question in my mind it's as good as any movie that came out in 2007.

James McBride

If you meet your heroes, you're always going to be disappointed. Frederick Douglass was a great man, but would I want my daughter to marry him? Probably not. That doesn't mean that I don't think he's a great man.

James McBride

Be kind to the living.

James McBride

Atticus Finch is, you know, he was just his whole - the business of his modesty and his ability to see tomorrow and to try to buttress his knowledge of what was coming for his kids was something that I'll never - as a father I'm not able to do.

James McBride

I wish all critics, no matter their color, were more sophisticated when it comes to the moral questions a film like 'St. Anna' is trying to raise.

James McBride

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.

James McBride

I write stories that are already in the air, and I think it's important to have the correct listening device to tune in to that frequency.

James McBride

I was in a special class in high school for truants. They made us stay together all day. Once a week, they would send us to a guidance counselor. He would sit me in his office and he would try to talk to me.

James McBride

The abolitionists were not like the rugged people out West, and they were not like John Brown, either. They were people who made speeches and did politics.

James McBride

Fiction makes your dreams come true, and, as a writer, fiction allows you to delve into the area of miracles.

James McBride

I love the language of, you know, the old black country man with a blues guitar and... boots and the quick banter.

James McBride

Being a best-selling author doesn't make you a millionaire. It's not like Stephen King.

James McBride

I cannot recall any moment of clarity about becoming a writer. I always liked to read. That's what did it.

James McBride

We don't know who John Brown was, and in many ways, his work shaped where we are today. He was a Pennsylvanian. He was the prototypical Yankee who fought back and suffered in doing so.

James McBride