James McBride (writer) Quotes

10 Sourced Quotes

My parents were nonmaterialistic. They believed that money without knowledge was worthless, that education tempered with religion was the way to climb out of poverty in America, and over the years they were proven right.

James McBride
There's such a big difference between being dead and alive, I told myself, the greatest gift that anyone can give anyone else is life. And the greatest sin a person can do to another is to take away that life. Next to that, all the rules and religions in the world are secondary; mere words and beliefs that people choose to believe and kill and hate by. My life won't be lived that way, and neither, I hope, will my children's.

James McBride
It was always so hot, and everyone was so polite, and everything was all surface but underneath it was like a bomb waiting to go off. I always felt that way about the South, that beneath the smiles and southern hospitality and politeness were a lot of guns and liquor and secrets.

James McBride
Since I was a little boy, she had always wanted me to go. She was always sending me off on a bus someplace, to elementary school, to camp, to relatives in Kentucky, to college. She pushed me away from her just as she'd pushed my elder siblings away when we lived in New York, literally shoving them out the front door when they left for college.

James McBride
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.

James McBride
You have to choose between what the world expects of you and what you want for yourself,

James McBride
Everybody got something to do with everything.

James McBride
But at the end of the day, there are some questions that have no answers, and then one answer that has no question: love rules the game. Every time. All the time. That's what counts.

James McBride
"What color is God's spirit?"
"It doesn't have a color," she [Mommy] said. "God is the color of water. Water doesn't have a
color."

James McBride
My black friends never asked me how much money I made, or what school my children went to, or anything like that. They just said, "Come as you are."

James McBride