James McBride Quotes

I've been blessed with a platform and a voice, and I owe it to myself and my family and our people to use it responsibly.

I don't know what issues concerning identity have helped contemporary fiction evolve to what it is now. All I know is that the range of voices that are being heard and published is a lot more diverse than when I was coming up.

People have a huge desire to be listened to, for politicians to take the time to understand their problems.

If you are a Northern Irish actor, maybe subconsciously more than consciously, you do have an instinctive responsibility at some point to tackle the recent history of where we have come from. It's not only a responsibility, but a privilege.

In 1970, somebody once asked me whether I thought my books would still be around in 40 years, and I thought, 'How would I know, and why would I care?' Well, it turns out I really do care.

I don't mean it egotistically, but I've been given the chance to be in front of people and sing, and I feel that it's part of my job and my duty - especially where I'm from - to speak the language of the people I'm around and speak for them.

I feel responsible to my people to portray them the way we should be.

I hope people are reading my work in the future. I hope I have done more than frightened a couple of generations. I hope I've inspired a few people one way or another.

I take his [Theodore Geisel] legacy very, very seriously. I know others may disagree because he's made such an impact on so many people that response to work becomes very personal, so people will have different points of view. But, at the core of this, I take the protection and the extension of his legacy very, very seriously. It's a very important part of my life.

Viola Davis keeps saying this movie should be called The Big Responsibility instead of The Help, because there were so many groups of people that you wanna do right by. You want to do right by Southerners and the African-American community and the readers of the book and the people that grew up with domestics and the people who worked as domestics. There's a million different groups that you're trying to please and satisfy that you're worried about not loving what comes across onscreen.

Diversity in literature is, in part, about representation - who is telling the stories and who stories are told about.

I think television is doing a better job than films in terms of representing people, but television is still not diverse.

A voice that was never wanted has become a voice for so many people who don’t have one.

In the beginning [of my career] I definitely felt a responsibility because I was representing a bunch of people [Sri lankans] who never got represented before. I felt this responsibility to correct that situation, to be like, "Look, you can't discriminate against refugees and Muslim people and blah, blah, blah . . ."

I'm also very passionate about charity because it helps people who don't have as loud of a voice as I do.

The important people in our lives leave imprints. They may stay or go in the physical realm, but they are always there in your heart, because they helped form your heart. There's no getting over that.

People are very surprised when they come to Hong Kong after seeing my films, because my version of it is quite different than Hong Kong in reality.

I admire the good samaritan, but I don't want to be one.I don't want to spend my life picking up people by the side of the road after they have been beaten up and robbed.I want to change the Jericho road, so that everybody has an opportunity for a job, education, security, health.

I do definitely get boxed into this #BlackGirlMagic social activist category. But it makes me think, "Well, maybe people are able to start thinking about that concept earlier and will hopefully be inspired to delve deeper into it and research it more." I think that's just how the media works. It's just very good at compartmentalizing human beings.

Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must always seem untimely.

I think it's really special to be a part of something that people are still watching or thinking about or interested in, or remember fondly many years later. I don't think it's annoying at all.

It's our job to just do as much as we can to enlighten the people about it and to represent it by playing it with some integrity. That's what I try to do.

This relationship will help guarantee that, for generations to come, people of all nations will understand my beliefs and my purpose

The only thing I want is something I can't have; and that is to know if, 100 years from now, people will still buy my books.