62 Quotes by John Edgar Wideman

For a young person, anybody who's sorting out and trying to make a life for himself or herself, to have the opportunity each day to set down - sit down and then set down thoughts, words - it's a crucial, crucial way of staying alive, of not allowing yourself and not allowing the culture outside yourself to totally dominate your life.

My father was a veteran. He fought in World War II. He was a patriot. On the other hand, he had no illusions whatsoever about how Uncle Sam had mistreated him and other black soldiers.

The whole idea of spellbinding, of being an entertainer, being the center of the stage, making up words - that let me know that writing is nice.

A lot of people think the best work I've done was nonfiction - the 'Brothers and Keepers' book. But I think of myself as a fiction writer. And I think, if my work is put in perspective, all the books would be a continual questioning of what's true and what's not true, what's documented and what's not documented.

Basketball can give us a kind of mystical awareness. Everything seems focused and in balance.

I try to cope by doing what I do, what I find purpose and joy in. For me, that has been writing and playing ball. It doesn't make the pain go away, but what else can I do?

That's what writing is: it's imagining that you can make a world. That's what basketball is, too: it's imagining the game as a world.

What I wanted to do in talking about basketball in 'Hoop Roots' was retrieve the game as something to participate in, not to watch.