Walter Mosley Quotes

30 Sourced Quotes

In prison, studying for survival was the only real pastime.

Walter Mosley
Mouse was the truest friend I ever had. And if there is such a thing as true evil, he was that too.

Walter Mosley
The older you get the more you live in the past.

Walter Mosley
Every day that we wake up is a good day. Every breath that we take is filled with hope for a better day. Every word that we speak is a chance to change what is bad into something good.

Walter Mosley
You should wait until the book is finished before making a judgment on its content. By the time you have gone through twenty drafts, the characters may have developed lives of their own, completely separate from the people you based them on in the beginning. And even if someone, at some time, gets upset with your words - so what? Live your life, sing your song. Anyone who loves you will want you to have that.

Walter Mosley
It was mid-November 2008. There were pirates taking ships with impunity in African waters, terrorists punching holes in Indian security, China sinking towards depression because Americans were afraid to buy cheap goods for Christmas, and the richest nation in the history of the world was talking about how to keep a budget.

Walter Mosley
The fear in my heart was like in one of those dreams where you try to run but you can't do it, you can't run because the fear is an anchor in your chest.

Walter Mosley
Many and most moments go by with us hardly aware of their passage. But love and hate and fear cause time to snag you, to drag you down like a spider's web holding fast to a doomed fly's wings.

Walter Mosley
A man who is already insane was frightening enough, but when he goes crazy...

Walter Mosley
Tell me how a healthy boy ain't wrong when he kills his black brother who sick.

Walter Mosley
There are as many kinds of love as there are flowers and bugs put together but men and women and their needs are all the same.

Walter Mosley
Because in L.A. people don't have time to stop; anywhere they have to go they go there in a car. The poorest man has a car in Los Angeles; he might not have a roof over his head but he has a car.

Walter Mosley
Defeat goes down hard with black people; it's our most common foe.

Walter Mosley
We must remember that there's more than one story and plot in every novel. There are at least as many stories as there are main characters, and each of these stories has to have multiple plots to keep it going - blood and bone, nerve and tissue, forgotten longing and unknown events.

Walter Mosley
You think that you can have the easy life of TV and gasoline without someone suffering and dying somewhere?

Walter Mosley
All of the philosophers I studied were white (with a few Eastern exceptions), and, for that matter, they were all male. Africa, the cradle of civilization, seemed to have no footing in the highest form of human thought.

Walter Mosley
The best thing about Fearless was the attribute he was named for; he didn't fear anything, not death or pain or any kind of passion.

Walter Mosley
Black men of our day were never told, The sky's the limit.... We could aspire to Joe Louis but never Henry Ford.

Walter Mosley
My father cared about the world he lived in, and so he admitted his confusion about his place in America because he didn't want me to make the same mistake in my life.

Walter Mosley
Being challenged by the law was a rite of passage for any Negro who wanted to better himself or his situation.

Walter Mosley
One of the problems with publishing is that you hire one black person and nobody understands them.
The Paris Review, The Art of Fiction No. 234, Issue 220, Spring 2017

Walter Mosley
I am in a world where, if you're a mystery writer, that's who you are and where you belong.

Walter Mosley
A man's bookcase will tell you everything you'll ever need to know about him

Walter Mosley
I would have been completely brainwashed by this lopsided and racist view of the world if it weren't for my father. He was a deep thinker and an irrepressible problem solver. He was a Black Socrates, asking why and then spoiling ready-made replies.

Walter Mosley
The process of writing a novel is like taking a journey by boat. You have to continually set yourself on course. If you get distracted or allow yourself to drift, you will never make it to the destination. It's not like highly defined train tracks or a highway; this is a path that you are creating discovering. The journey is your narrative. Keep to it and there will be a tale told.

Walter Mosley
The first thing you have to know about writing is that it is something you must do everyday. There are two reasons for this rule: Getting the work done and connecting with your unconscious mind.

Walter Mosley
The police and I have a deal. I don't talk to them and they don't listen to me.

Walter Mosley
I'm just a survivor from the train wreck of the modern world.

Walter Mosley
I know how bad a thing it is to be a slave and I know how terrible it was but I don't believe that there's a free person in the whole world that knows how good a cup full of water can taste. Because you have to be a deprived slave, to be kept waiting for your water like we were to really appreciate how good just one swallow can be. When we finally got a drop on our tongues it was like something straight from the hands of the Almighty.

Walter Mosley
My father always taught by telling stories about his experiences. His lessons were about morality and art and what insects and birds and human beings had in common. He told me what it meant to be a man and to be a Black man. He taught me about love and responsibility, about beauty, and how to make gumbo.

Walter Mosley