I have cousins in North Carolina who talk in that old Southern style of 'yakking,' if you will. All the black men in my life when I was a boy talked that way, and I love that kind of talk.
— 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.
We're learning a tremendous amount of propaganda from television and the Internet.
Everybody knew James Brown. Every musician dreamed of being in his band.
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.
You can't live for literature. You can't live for the job.
I grew up in a house with a lot of kids, brothers and sisters. So I don't mind a lot of talking, yelling, playing. I can tune most of that out.
I split my time between a small town in New Jersey and New York City.
I type most of my books for the first chapter or two - I use a manual typewriter for the first 50 pages or so - and then I move to the computer. It helps me keep the work lean so I don't end up spending 10 pages describing a leaf.
James Brown's music still sounds as fresh and as good and as new as it did when he first created it.
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.
I can't be a creative person if I'm a celebrity.
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.
I read more history books than anything else.
If you don't have humor, you're not going to make it. You're going to be one of those people who walks around with your head about to explode.
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.
Until you expose the cancer, you can't fix it.
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.
My wife and kids like the quiet and the countryside - I still find that kind of quiet hard to listen to.
As far as making a living, if plumbing earned more, I'd probably do it. At least you can leave the job at home once the tools are put away. A writer works in his mind 24/7.
Spike Lee listens a lot. He's one of the quietest creative people I've ever met.
All of us want to be Superman when we grow up, fighting for truth and justice. That's part of what drives me as a writer.
Historical novels are hard to do for the general public for commercial writers like myself.
I go through periods listening to specific types of music. Because I'm a musician, listening to music is... it's a bit like work for me. A little bit.
My main problem with fiction is that once my characters get moving, you just have to follow them along and get out of the way of the story, but sometimes they pull me in too many directions, and I need to focus.
Writing teaches writing.
James Brown was the Monday-to-Friday guy. He was the hardest man in show business. He was like your dad and your uncle: He showed up, and he hit hard.
I love the language of, you know, the old black country man with a blues guitar and... boots and the quick banter.
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.
You can't write just anything. Your story needs structure.
People process pain differently. My family, we were pretty humorous about things that went on.
I just don't see the point in sitting around hollering the blues over things you have no control over. It's all in God's hands.
The black church will accept anybody.
Newt Gingrich wrote a novel, and he's a short story. Bill Clinton wrote a biography, and he's a novel.
I like stories where normal people are in abnormal situations, and that's what appeals to me about history.
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.
I cannot recall any moment of clarity about becoming a writer. I always liked to read. That's what did it.
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.
I don't live for my work. My life is my life. That's more important, and I think that helps my work.
I don't want to read a book that's depressing.
Most of my work is done when everyone else is asleep.
If you can whistle the melody, then the song will stick. But if you need a bunch of machines to make it sound good, you're probably not writing anything that's going to last a long time.
A band is not a democracy: It's show business.
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.
The hard part about writing about a guy like John Brown is that he was so serious, and his cause was so serious, that most of what's been written about him is really serious and, in my opinion, a little bit boring.
When you tell them you're a writer, they say, 'What have you written?' And then you've got to tell them what you've done. I don't ask a plumber what he does. Then I have to explain what I've done, and I haven't really, you know. I've just told some stories.
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.
I don't come from Lake Wobegon, and that world is not mine. It's not that funny to me. It's funny to other people, and I'm not judging it, but the world that I come from is not considered funny by other people as well. There's so much pain in it.
Don't get me started on Americans and war. One of the things I learnt over in Italy is how they mythologised the war so that it's all good old gung-ho guys from Omaha and ignored everyone else's role.
The question of religion in black America is something filmmakers don't want to touch.
