Top 114 Quotes by James McBride

Be kind to the living.

I'm hot on the Jewish book club circuit. How many black authors do you know who can say that?

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

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.

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.

When my mother left home, her family sat shivah for her, more because my father was not Jewish than because he was black.

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.

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.

James Brown's music still sounds as fresh and as good and as new as it did when he first created it.