Arthur Alfonso Schomburg Quotes

My people have called upon me to speak to you. The red man has no books, and when he wishes to make known his views...like his father before him...he speaks with his mouth. He is afraid of writing. When he speaks he knows what he says; the Great Spirit hears him. Writing is the invention of the pale faces;

I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind.

I remember that - you know, I didn't receive a formal education. I was educated in the Montevideo cafe, in the cafes of Montevideo. There, I received my first lessons in the art of telling stories, storytelling.

I began telling stories as a volunteer in my daughters' school. But I grew up hearing stories from Cuban and Southern storytellers, and I learned a great deal by just being quiet and listening.

I think as a kid I always liked to listen to people. I loved hearing stories.

The fact is that the learning process goes on, and so long as the voices are not stilled and the singers go on singing some of it gets through.

Most of our history has been recorded orally. Among us Cherokee people we used to have people who were trained to listen at all meetings and then pass it on.

I learned to write by listening to people talk. I still feel that the best of my writing comes from having heard rather than having read.

Each of us has been designed for one of two immortal functions, as either a storyteller or as a cross-legged listener to tales of wonder, love, and daring. When we cease to tell or listen, then we no longer exist as a people.

Education is the methodical creation of the habit of thinking.

If you take away the gift of reading, you create the gift of listening.

If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.

My earliest memory is learning to read 'Muffin the Mule' when I was about three.

I was a very avid reader when I was a child, and I also was a good listener.

The history of storytelling isn't one of simply entertaining the masses but of also advising, instructing, challenging the status quo.

Most people - and particularly people whose lives have nothing to do with books at all - are intrigued by the idea that somebody wants to listen to them and get it right.

I have been blessed in many ways, and one of those is to have been born in Africa, for me a great treasure house of stories. I have been researching it since my infancy; reading about it, talking to men and women who have spent their lives in this land, living it as I have and loving it as I do. I write almost entirely from my own experience.

I never took a photograph. Instead, I became a good listener.

You know, as a writer, I'm more of a listener than a writer, cuz if I hear something I will write it down.

I'm not a natural storyteller at all. If anything, I'm a natural interviewer, a natural listener, but I'm not a natural storyteller.

The more I can hear, the more I can learn, the better off I'll be.

I didn't learn stories, I just absorbed them.

These will vary in every human being; but knowledge is the same for every mind, and every mind may and ought to be trained to receive it.

Everything in writing begins with language. Language begins with listening.

I write what I hear.