Top 114 Quotes by James McBride

Anyone can write your own life story.

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

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.

I think only now am I at the age where I've forgiven the past enough to say, 'You know what? Slavery was there. Let's talk about it in ways that will help us face tomorrow.

The whole notion of owning a person is so ludicrous, there's plenty of room to make fun.

When I was coming up, a lot of serious jazz players couldn't stand funk.

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.

Be a member of the human race. Love somebody. Change the world.

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.

Some writers like to go around talking about what they do all the time. I don't.