Walter Mosley Quotes

The older I grow the more I see the influence of my family on my life. I didn't always see it. It was up to our parents to see that we had our education in a town that hadn't yet realized what racial prejudice was but actually knew and practiced it on occasion.

At the beginning of my career as a writer, I felt I knew nothing of Chinese culture. I was writing about emotional confusion with my mother related to our different beliefs. Hers was based in family history, which I didn't know anything about. I always felt hesitant in talking about Chinese culture and American culture.

My mum and dad were speaking all the time about, 'In Sudan we do this,' and 'In Egypt we do that,' so I was very aware of cultural differences. I was confused growing up; it gave me a feeling of being an outsider watching others. But I think this is good for a writer.

Culture means, I think, that you have widened your experience enough through reading and through being a little bit thoughtful about these things that it has changed your outlook in some ways. And not necessarily made you a better human being but made you see things.

Living in different cultures helped me work out who I was going to be, separate from where I came from.

Most of the younger people I knew didn't seem to have a handle on things; they hadn't found their place, they didn't understand how the world works, they didn't understand how to treat other people, and they didn't know how to stop thinking about themselves.

I'm really trying to dredge up what one might call intellectual and moral material. For example, when do you realize that you are an American? What age does that happen to you? When do you realize what religion your parents practice? When does it all become conscious? I was interested in exploring all of that.

I have very smart parents. I feel I learned a lot from both of my parents and life experience.

People forget that the more we know about the world - about people, cultures, and about life - the stronger we are as actors because the more we can bring to our characters.

At times, I might have been too young; I might have been too naive at times and didn't understand who I really was to a whole culture.

I know that I'm not perfect. While we all have our prejudices and bigotries, we have to learn that it's an issue that we have to control, that it's part of my responsibility as an entrepreneur to try to solve it, not just to kick the problem down the road.

My mother was a free-spirited clinical therapist, and I had the most hard-working father, a television lighting director by trade. My mum raised me to be a global citizen, with eyes open to sometimes harsh realities.

I feel very grateful for the way I was brought up. I did not realise it then, but as I grew older and started writing and realised the material that was there was very strong, I felt very grateful that my life was complicated and that my identity was never clear but put me in a position that was always questioned.

I'm actually not a fan of the word 'woke.' I think the connotation of that means being socially aware, which is a beautiful thing to be. But it does not take into account being self-aware.

Now that I'm older, I appreciate my culture and I appreciate Spanish. I feel bad I didn't pick up on it earlier.

And I didn't know what that meant for a long time. It was only when I began to travel and look and live beyond my home that I understand my responsibility to others.

Travelling as extensively as I do... the take away for me has made me very humble and very sympathetic to other people's plight in the world and very desirous of being proactive in being part of a solution somehow and not part of a problem. It's made me very patient and very grateful for where I live.

One of the most effective ways to learn about oneself is by taking seriously the cultures of others. It forces you to pay attention to those details of life which differentiate them from you.

We cannot abandon this rabbit hole for fear of a traumatic encounter with our own culture.

If we behave like those on the other side, then we are the other side. Instead of changing the world, all we'll achieve is a reflection of the one we want to destroy.

You know it's real when you are who you think you are

Three key humanist virtues are courage, cognition, and caring - not dependence, ignorance, or insensitivity to the needs of others.

Your honesty, Your love, Your compassion should come from your inner being, not from teachings and scriptures.

I take the greatest lesson from compassion - it takes away all the conceit out of my life.

Who is that girl I see, staring straight back at me? When will my reflection show who I am inside?