Quotes about blackness
page 6

“Like a cartoon world, where the figures are flat and outlined in black, jerking through some kind of goofy story that might be real funny if it weren't for the cartoon figures being real guys…”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

World, Jerk, Guy

“I can't help but see myself in them. The Seelie are who I was before my sister died. Pink, pretty, frivolous Mac. The Unseelie are who I've become, carved by loss and despair. Black, grungy, driven Mac.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

Sister, Loss, Help, Despair

“There was a reason for the cost of those perfectly plain black dresses.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Source: The Portable Dorothy Parker

“That's how it is sometimes--
God comes to your window,
all bright light and black wings,
and you're just too tired to open it.”

Dorianne Laux (1952) American poet

Source: What We Carry

God, Light

“I used to think the world was broken down by tribes,' I said. 'By Black and White. By Indian and White. But I know this isn't true. The world is only broken into two tribes: the people who are assholes and the people who are not.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

People, World, Thinking

“I love America and I hate it. I'm torn between the two. I have two conflicting visions of America. One is a kind of dream landscape and the other is a kind of black comedy.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

Love, Hate, Dreams

“We are all imprisoned by the dictionary. We choose out of that vast, paper-walled prison our convicts, the little black printed words, when in truth we need fresh sounds to utter, new enfranchised noises which would produce a new effect.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan

Truth

“The definition of black irony is Pro-lifers killing Doctors who do abortions”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

“No, nothing can change my world
--Ichigo Kurosaki, Black Moon Rising”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

World, Change

“It’s never a good thing when the black volhv says “Uh-oh” and then runs for his life.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Gunmetal Magic

Life

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

Stupidity, Beauty, Time, Beauty

“There’s so much gray to every story—nothing is so black and white.”

Lisa Ling (1973) American journalist, television presenter, and author

“Why do you wear a mask and hood?"
I think everybody will in the near future," was the man in black's reply. "They're terribly comfortable.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Thinking, Future

“Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it's some place way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don't know nothin' but what we see.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Way

“Akmon squealed with delight. “I knew you were as smart as Hercules! I will call you Black Bottom, the Sequel!”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

“Standing there, I loved myself and I hated myself. That's what the black Mary did to me, made me feel my glory and my shame at the same time.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Love, Hate, Feeling, Time

“If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you mustn't seek to show that no crows are; it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Law

“The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Happiness

“Hither came Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.”

Robert E. Howard The Complete Chronicles of Conan

"The Phoenix on the Sword" (1932)
Source: The Complete Chronicles of Conan

“What age is a black boy when he learns he's scary?”

Jonathan Lethem book The Fortress of Solitude

Source: The Fortress of Solitude

Age, Boy, Learning

“…gender is not sane. It's not sane to call a rainbow black and white.”

Kate Bornstein (1948) American author, playwright, performance artist, and gender theorist

“But God will know the slow tread of an old couple’s love for each other, and understand how black shadows make part of its whole.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book The Buried Giant

Source: The Buried Giant

Love, God, Understanding, Parting

“It is well, when in difficulties, to say never a word, neither black nor white. Speech is silver but silence is golden.”

Muriel Spark book The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Source: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Silence

“And I can't die easy thinking maybe the menfolks white or black is making a spit cup out of you. Have some sympathy for me. Put me down easy, Janie, I'm a cracked plate.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Thinking

“Some people got vicious Dobermans. I got a shaved attack poodle in a black sweater. His tough, spawn-of-hell image had taken a fatal blow, but at least he would be warm.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

People, Hell

“I think people understand things different when they get older. It’s not a question of getting soft, or seeing things in the gray areas instead of black and white. I really believe I’m just understanding things different. Better.”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

People, Understanding, Question, Thinking

“Large, heavy, ragged black clouds hung like crape hammocks beneath the starry cope of the night. You would have said that they were the cobwebs of the firmament.”

Victor Hugo book The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Source: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Night

“Only the foolish, blinded by language's conventions, think of fire as red or gold. Fire is blue at it's melancholy rim, green in it's envious heart. It may burn white, or even, in it's greatest rages, black.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

Thinking, Rage, Heart

“Someone asked us later, "Didn't you wonder why no one came across you sooner?"
Did I wonder?
When you see your parents zipped up in black body bags on the Jellicoe Road like they're some kind of garbage, don't you know?
Wonder dies.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

Parent

“Ravens are the birds I'll miss most when I die. If only the darkness into which we must look were composed of the black light of their limber intelligence. If only we did not have to die at all. Instead, become ravens.”

Louise Erdrich (1954) writer from the United States

Source: The Painted Drum

Intelligence, Bird, Light

“Look how black the sky is, the writer said. I made it that way.”

Bret Easton Ellis book Lunar Park

Source: Lunar Park

Way

“Everytime I look at a zebra, I can't figure out whether it's black with white stripes or white with black stripes, and that frustrates me.”

Jodi Picoult book House Rules

Source: House Rules

“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

Women, Men, Soul, History

“I see the whole episode in my memory as if it were a very crisply photographed black and white movie. Directed by Bergman perhaps. We are playing ourselves in the movie version. If only we could escape from always having to play ourselves!”

Erica Jong book Fear of Flying

Source: Fear of Flying

Memory

“She grew more and more silent about what really mattered. She curled inside herself like one of those black chimney brushes, the little shellfish you see on the beach, and you touch them, and then go inside and don’t come out.”

Janet Frame (1924–2004) New Zealand author

Source: Owls Do Cry

“Black as night and as beautiful as forever.”

Stephen King book Everything's Eventual

Source: Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales

Beauty, Night

“Just because he has black fingernails doesn't mean he's a monster-that's how you've defended yourself for years.”

Ellen Schreiber (1967) American writer

Source: Dance with a Vampire

“It isn't a matter of black is beautiful as much as it is white is not all that's beautiful.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

Beauty

“I used to be ashamed
And now I am proud.
The world once was black
And now it is bright.
I used to walk head bent
And now I stand up tall.
I used to have dreams
But now I have hope.”

Judith McNaught (1944) American writer

Source: Perfect

World, Dreams, Hope

“Usually, when people talk about the "strength" of black women…. they ignore the reality that to be strong in the face of oppression is not the same as overcoming oppression, that endurance is not to be confused with transformation.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Women, People, Reality, Strong

“All those people in their black-and-white worlds - they have no idea what they're missing”

Wendy Mass A Mango-Shaped Space

Source: A Mango-Shaped Space

People, World, Idea

“Black belt in Akihito. (Amanda)
Any other time, I'd kiss you for that. (Kyrian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Night Pleasures

Source: Night Pleasures

Kiss, Time

“Beware the dark pool at the bottom of our hearts. In its icy, black depths dwell strange and twisted creatures it is best not to disturb.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Source: I is for Innocent

Heart

“It’s an odd thing, happiness. Some people take happiness from gold. Or black pearls. And some of us, far more fortunate, take their happiness from periwinkles.”

Patricia A. McKillip book The Changeling Sea

Source: The Changeling Sea

Happiness, People

“Name three types of olives."

"Olives! I wouldn't know one type!"

"Well, there are three. You can get green ones, you can get black ones, or you can get stuffed.”

John Marsden book Tomorrow, When the War Began

Source: Tomorrow, When the War Began

“I cried until my eyes swelled shut, and then I slept, a black, dreamless sleep from which I awoke amazingly refreshed, at least until I remembered.”

Elizabeth Berg (1948) American novelist

Source: The Year of Pleasures

Sleep, Depressing

“Right now I'd like all my troubles to stand in front of me in a straight line, and one by one I'd give each a black eye.”

Shannon Hale The Goose Girl

Source: The Goose Girl

“A black cat among roses,
phlox, lilac-misted under a quarter moon,
the sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock. The garden is very still.
It is dazed with moonlight,
contented with perfume…”

Amy Lowell (1874–1925) US writer

Cats, Night

“The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet black bough.”

Ezra Pound (1885–1972) American Imagist poet and critic

“Me? I'm the king of the twentieth century. I'm the bogeyman. The villain… The black sheep of the family.”

Alan Moore V for Vendetta

Variant: I'm the king of the 20th century. I'm the boogeyman, the villian, the black sheep of the family.
Source: V for Vendetta

Family

“Only happy people have nightmares, from overeating. For those who live a nightmare reality, sleep is a black hole, lost in time, like death.”

Guy Sajer book The Forgotten Soldier

Source: The Forgotten Soldier

Death, Happiness, People, Reality

“Without the presence of black people in America, European-Americans would not be "white"-- they would be Irish, Italians, Poles, Welsh, and other engaged in class, ethnic, and gender struggles over resources and identity. (p. 107-108)”

Cornel West book Race Matters

Source: Race Matters

People

“There are a lot of black-hearted, mean-spirited bastards in the world. It's important that we hold them to acount. But always remember thatmight be the most black-hearted and mean-spirited in the lot, so hold yourself the most accountable of all.”

Darren Shan (1972) Irish writer of English-language fiction under pen name, real name Darren O'Shaughnessy

Source: Zom-B Underground

World, Heart

“I go to my Room and I drink and I smoke some cigarettes and I think about her. I drink and I smoke and I think about her and at a certain point blackness comes and my memory fails me.”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

Source: A Million Little Pieces

Drink, Thinking, Memory

“Born
of Black
and White, Eaten
with worms,
I'm a Saint, a Sinner,
a Siren of the
Word, The Circle
knows me, the rest
just wanna trip on
Grace Juice, Baby
Showdown
at midnight”

Ted Dekker book Showdown

Source: Showdown

Baby

“Both of us victims of the same twentieth-century plague. Not the Black Death, this time; the Grey Life.”

Aldous Huxley book Island

Source: Island (1962)

Life, Death, Time

“He said that black sheeps express everyone else's anger and pain. It's not that they have all the anger and pain-they're just the only ones who let it out. Then the other people don't have to.”

Francesca Lia Block book Dangerous Angels

Source: Dangerous Angels

Pain, People, Anger

“People don't change. There are two kinds of people in the world: winners and losers. Black and white. I don't know where gray fits in, or if you can even live in that shade.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

People, World, Change

“I'm a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black,… an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.”

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) American science fiction writer

Water

“And I'll wash your other clothes. Shall I also order you a new set of leathers?"
"Don't-" Wrath shut his mouth. "Sure. That'd be great. And, ah, could you get me some boxers? Black? XXL?”

Jessica Bird book Dark Lover

Source: Dark Lover

Clothes

“I stared at her black hair. It was shiny like the promises in magazines.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

“It was the heaviest thing I'd ever felt, as if I were being crushed under a thousand trucks. I wanted to black out from the pain, but I breathed deeply.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

Pain

“Al was standing a bare three feet away, his mood almost jovial as he took the paper and it vanished in a wash of black sparkles.

“Thank you, Rachel,” he said, carefully reaching for my hand as Trent stiffened.

“Welcome back, my itchy witch.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: A Perfect Blood

Mood

“She felt as if the world were tilting and she was clinging on helplessly, trying to keep from tumbling into a black abyss.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

World

“I tried to communicate happiness in that word, but I don't know if it came out that way. All I was feeling was despair. And envy. Envy so thick and so black I felt like I was choking on it.”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Happiness, Way, Feeling, Communication

“Some women waited for a night in shining armor. She, apparently, had ended up with a knight in black jeans and leather, who wanted to chase her down and have his evil way with her.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Bayou Moon

Women, Way, Evil, Waiting

“Alright, macho babe boy, I'm not some little ditz to bat my eyelashes at the buff stud in black leather. Don't try your he-man tactics with me. I'll have you know, in my office, I'm known as the ball-breaker. (Amanda)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Night Pleasures

Source: Night Pleasures

Boy

“Like black, do you? (Cassandra)
It serves its purpose. It’s hard to look intimidating in pastels. (Wulf)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Kiss of the Night

“the redness had seeped from the day and night was arranging herself around us. Cooling things down, staining and dyeing the evening purple and blue black.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Night

“Weirdly, an image of Adrian’s Love painting came back to me. I thought of the jagged red streak, slashing through the blackness, ripping it
apart. Staring at Jill and her inconsolable pain, I suddenly understood his art a little bit better.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Love, Pain, Art, Painting

“… My point is, I went crazy. When I saw what a black, awful joke the world was. I went crazy as a coot! I admit it! Why can't you?”

Alan Moore book Batman: The Killing Joke

Source: Batman: The Killing Joke

World

“Optimist, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“But when you read a book, what you see are black squiggles on pulped wood or, increasingly, dark pixels on a pale screen. To transform these icons into characters and events, you must imagine. And when you imagine, you create.”

Mohsin Hamid book How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

Source: How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

Books, Imagination, Reading

“God does not know whether a skin is black or white, He sees only souls.”

Katherine Anne Porter book The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter

Source: The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter

God, Soul

“Night was a very different matter. It was dense, thicker than the very walls, and it was empty, so black, so immense that within it you could brush against appalling things and feel roaming and prowling around a strange, mysterious horror.”

Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer

Source: The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant, Part One

Feeling, Night

“As another has well said, to handicap a student by teaching him that his black face is a curse and that his struggle to change his condition is hopeless is the worst sort of lynching.”

Carter G. Woodson book The Mis-Education of the Negro

Source: The Mis-Education of the Negro

Change

“Both read the Bible day and night,
But thou read'st black where I read white.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Reading, Night

“He [Iggy] started reaching for things around the table, and his hand landed on Total. “You’re black.”
“I prefer canine-American,” said Total.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Final Warning

“Straightaway, she'd called to the guard, "Oh, boys?" She'd sauntered to the glass in only her black lace bra and panties. "I need some assistance," When they slowed, agog, she'd purred, "Can one of you help me find my orgasm?”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dreams of a Dark Warrior

Boy, Help

“This year I'm a star, but what will I be next year? A black hole?”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Star

“Education is indoctrination if you're white - subjugation if you're black.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

Education

“jace's clothes had been clean, stylish, ordinary. Sebastian had been wearing a long black wool trench coat that had looked expensive.
Like an evil Burbeery ad, Simon said when she was done.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Evil, Clothes

“Another door swung open, and another guard appeared, this time with Gabrielle, who wore a black catsuit and rappelling harness.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Uncommon Criminals

Appearance, Time

“Does the giraffe know what he's for? Or care? Or even think about his place in things? A giraffe has a black tongue twenty-seven inches long and no vocal cords. A giraffe has nothing to say. He just goes on giraffing.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Thinking

“Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones.”

Shirley Jackson book The Lottery

Source: The Lottery (1948)

Box

“The world is not that black and white, Rachel. There are no moral absolutes. It is complex.”

Emily Giffin Something Borrowed

Source: Something Borrowed

World

“Amy Cahill didn't believe in omens. But black snow was falling, the earth was rumbling beneath her feet, her brother was meowing, and her uncle Alistair was prancing on the beach in pink pajamas.
She had to admit, the signs were not promising.”

Peter Lerangis book The Viper's Nest

Source: The Viper's Nest

“We were as Hansel and Gretel and we ventured out into the black forest of the world.”

Patti Smith Just Kids

Source: Just Kids

World

“I uncapped the blade, flung open the door, and found myself face-to-face with a black pegasus. Its voice spoke in my mind as it clopped away from the sword blade.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

“No black woman writer in this culture can write "too much". Indeed, no woman writer can write "too much"… No woman has ever written enough.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Source: remembered rapture: the writer at work

“The obliterated place is equal parts destruction and creation. The obliterated place is pitch black and bright light. It is water and parched earth. It is mud and it is manna. The real work of deep grief is making a home there.”

Cheryl Strayed book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Source: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Home, Light, Water, Parting

“Kieran glanced at her with shimmering eyes. Neither looked quite human: The black eye was too dark, the silver too metallic. And yet the overall effect was haunting, inhumanly beautiful.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Beauty

“When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night,
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.”

Flann O'Brien book At Swim-Two-Birds

Source: At Swim-Two-Birds

Life, Night

“It didn't take long to realize I didn't hardly know nothing. And that if you ast yourself why you black or a man or a woman or a bush it don't mean nothing if you don't ast why you here, period”

Alice Walker book The Color Purple

Source: The Color Purple

“For a moment, I felt as if the universe had turned upside down and we were falling softly into an enormous black bowl of stars, and I knew, beyond any doubt, that everything was going to be alright.”

Tana French In the Woods

Source: In the Woods

Star, Universe

“You’re playing the creepy vibe a little hard,” I said. “Might as well go for broke, put on a black top hat and pipe in some organ music.”

Jim Butcher book Small Favor

Source: Small Favor

Music

“Life's a choice: you can live in black and white, or you can live in colour. I'll take every shade of the rainbow and the gazillion in between!”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Iced

Life

“He was dressed just like on TV, with lots of silver chains and bracelets, ripped jeans, and a black muscle shirt (Which was kind of stupid, since he didn't have any muscles).”

Rick Riordan The Maze of Bones

Source: The Maze of Bones

Stupidity

“Watching television is like taking black spray paint to your third eye.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Painting

“Just coffee. Black—like my soul.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Simon and Clary, pg. 36
Variant: What do you want?"
"Just coffee. Black - like my soul.
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Soul, Coffee

Quotes about blackness page 6

Quotes about blackness
page 6