Black Quotations | Page 2

Just because the character listens to an iPod and wears black nail polish, she's goth. That was just a misused word

I have always believed, heretofore, in the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence, that all men are born free and equal; but of late it appears that some men are born slaves, and I regret that they are not black, so all the world might know them.

The film Black Hawk Down paints the Somali people as wild savages.

The problem is the following, black music is increasing encumbered by white elements, often pleasant but always superfluous, easily and advantageously replaced with black elements.

As you know, I'm a black girl out of the projects of New York City, raised in a single parent home because my parents divorced very very young... welfare and homeless at four and then again at 16 and just not having the things or the necessary tools that society would say I needed to have in order to be any kind of success in life.

We believe that when you make Black America better - you make all of America better.

Granny beads are what they're called when a grandma works the garden all day - you always see them - they have a handkerchief around their neck with a lot of dust on them, and then the sweat will go down and make these black beads of sweat and dirt around their neck. And that's what they call granny beads.

I wasn't young, I wasn't pretty, and I was a black woman looking for success in a business where those attributes were certainly not in demand in the 1960s.

Black Fergusonians have shown that they will vote when they have something to vote for and know that their vote will count. Seventy-six percent of them turned out in November 2012, when Missouri was a key swing state for Barack Obama's reelection.

When I'm around black or white people, I'm always in the middle. Especially when I am around black people; they will really tell how they feel about white people regardless of the fact that I'm also white and have white relatives. It's very interesting and can be really hard.

I have just one black and white photograph left of my mother when she was younger. She was 17 when it was taken and beautiful with wispy curls and eyes that shone like dark marbles.

The Jam went through a phase of wearing satin jackets. But that was pre-getting signed and making it, when we were still playing the pubs and clubs - around '75. Shocking, really - what would you call them apart from 'horrible?' We'd wear these white zip-up bomber jackets with black kind of loon pants and black and white shoes.

A lot of people have called me the black Bette Midler, and I regard that as a compliment.

To understand how black projects began, and how they continue to function today, one must start with the creation of the atomic bomb. The men who ran the Manhattan Project wrote the rules about black operations. The atomic bomb was the mother of all black projects, and it is the parent from which all black operations have sprung.

Within three months I had gone from being this black sheep of the town to suddenly becoming a pop star.

Many voted in 2008 with the desire to see racism and racists humiliated by having a qualified black man elected president.

Like myself, President Obama is the father of two daughters. He understands the obstacles that they face as women, but he also understands the emergency of the state of young black men in America.

We're going to fight racism not with racism, but we're going to fight with solidarity. We say we're not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, but we're going to fight it with socialism.

When I talk about rock n' roll, to me, that goes back to the beginning of the 1950s. Blue suede shoes and sideburns, man. Pink and black coloured clothes. Turn your collar up, comb your hair in ducktails. And the music was cool. It was a whole culture then - a different world.

The only thing I change mainly is my sneakers. I love sneakers. But everything's sort of black or jeans. Jeans, always.

In all my novels, I deal with the many problems and prejudices which exist for Black people in Britain today.

I spent seven months in Africa and came back saying there isn't anything you can say about black people that you couldn't say about, say, pink people except that they're black.

In Darwin's time all of biology was a black box: not only the cell, or the eye, or digestion, or immunity, but every biological structure and function because, ultimately, no one could explain how biological processes occurred.

So for everybody who allows themselves to be separated from me because I said 'African' instead of 'Nubian' or 'Black' or 'Kemet' or 'original' or 'Israelite,' don't be so foolish. I say 'African' because the continent of Africa is the land from which we all originate. It is the word that we are most familiar with right now.

We do as much, we eat as much, we want as much.

My mother is Irish, my father is black and Venezuelan, and me - I'm tan, I guess.

I love berries. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, black berries, anything with an 'errie' in it!

I can remember being in my pram: children stayed in their prams much longer then than they do now. A big bouncy pram with black covers and a hood with metal clips that could trap your fingers. I was looking up at my sister who was sitting on the pram seat, with her back to me.

When I go in to see people - and I sell an occasional ad now - I never say, 'Help me because I am black' or 'Help me because I am a minority.' I always talk about what we can do for them.

As far as trucks, the great thing about a Range Rover is if you're going out for a dinner, even a black tie event, you can take the Range Rover.

When you don't work for a while, immediately you get a little black mark next to your name.

As a black actress you've got to work doubly hard. But it doesn't ever get me to the point where I give up on myself. It just motivates me to be more prepared, focus and disciplined. That's why I care so much about doing black films and making sure that we represent and are represented correctly.

I went to an historically black college where we're always told that there's limitation. And so I'm happy to represent for black colleges.

Did people think I sounded black? Totally, but that was a marketing tool as well, but also this is how I grew up and these are my influences.

I have found in black metal the lyrics are profoundly beautiful... a pathos and mythos at the same time.

Michael Jackson wanted to be in Men in Black II. He told me he had seen the first Men in Black in Paris and had stayed behind and sat there and wept. I had to explain to him that it was a comedy.

You are young, gifted, and Black. We must begin to tell our young, There's a world waiting for you, Yours is the quest that's just begun.

I don't know if there is a 'lack' of good black men. But when you haven't taken the time to get to know yourself, be OK with you, and articulate what it is you want in a relationship, then you can't possibly find that person for you because you don't even know what you're looking for.

I don't have an objective overview of Black Sunday.

The system of creating opportunities for those who were by law excluded, you've got to do that. But you mustn't create a perception that the process is devoid of competitiveness... devoid of building a world class, sustainable black business community.

My life is black and white and mixed. My mother's a Rastafarian, my dad was a short white guy - it's not an affectation. It's also the lives of millions of people throughout the world.

It was 1989, and the word 'Muslim' wasn't even really used in Britain at the time; you were either black or Asian.

There has been the biggest black cloud following me around. People believe it's all my fault that Steve is not here. He has always had an open door, and he doesn't choose to do this any more.

What is blackness? Is it the way you talk? Do you got to say, 'Dey this, dey dat.' Or the way you dress? Or is it the forgiving of certain things? What is black enough?

Youth is impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, it denotes that their hearts are black, and that they are often cruel and relentless, and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them. Thus it has ever been.

My computer background is a black and white picture I took of the Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum in Brazil.

There are not many males, black or white, who wish to get involved with a woman who's committed to her own development

I spent money, and I kept thinking, 'I get one more movie and I'll wipe these bills out,' but that movie never came. That black pride, I said, 'Man, I'm going to hang in there, I'm going to pay these bills.' So you owe a million dollars. 'I can pay that.' OK, fines, fees, now you owe two and a half million. 'But I didn't do nothin'!'

One puts on black robes to scare the hell out of white people, while the other puts on white robes to scare the hell out of blacks.

Remember the referendum on the Charlottetown constitutional accord? The more Canada's political and business elites threatened Canadians that the country would disappear into a black hole if the accord weren't passed, the more Canadians opposed it.

Hillary Clinton could say she was a woman and running for president. And Sarah Palin could say she was a woman and running for vice-president. But Obama couldn't say, 'I'm black and I'm running for president.' It couldn't come out of his mouth. He couldn't say that because, if he did, he'd lose votes.

I used to tell Jackie (Robinson) sometimes when they were throwing at him, 'Jackie, they aren't throwing at you because you are black. They are throwing at you because they don't like you.

Faith is the black person's federal reserve system.

Black Sabbath was written on bass: I just walked into the studio and went, bah, bah, bah, and everybody joined in and we just did it.

After the accident Black Sheep was pretty much at an end.

Nothing will ever top 'The Wire.' It was historical. It was black cinema.

I was born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1969, in a time and place where no one was saying, Look how far weve come, because we hadnt come very far, to say the least. Although Jacksons population was half white and half black, I didnt have a single black friend or a black neighbor or even a black person in my school.

I was just very interested in the American frontier and the growth of capitalism - those enormous fortunes that were being made, more often than not, on the blood of poor people, black people, Indian people. They were the ones who paid very dearly for those great fortunes.

I feel kind of like the black sheep in Congress, but here I am.

For me, I've never talked about my private life. It's always been about Black Sabbath. It's strange to open up and talk about me as a young lad, my relationships, marriages and what not.

The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity.

In Men in Black, it was a very small character, no pun intended.

Evolutionary cosmology formulates theories in which a universe is capable of giving rise to and generating future universes out of itself, within black holes or whatever.

One movie I think is just terrific is 'Bernie,' with Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine. That was a great surprise to me - so witty, so entertaining, a true story, and I'm not a great Jack Black fan, but he's great in it. I think it's a gem.

I don't look as handsome in Men in Black 2 as I did in the first one.

There are many positive things to say about the black community. No question about it.

But what of black women?... I most sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its fineness up through so devilish a fire.

My father and uncles and all their friends turned their lungs black trying to satisfy my collector's zeal.

But, I understand that Black Comb and Whistler are supposed to be great for snowboarding. So I am looking forward to going there someday soon.

It was to carry the American democratic journey beyond these failings that Black citizens and civil rights workers risked unemployment, violence and death.

There is a class system in acting just like in anything else. Black females fall in a category below black male actors.

My teammates at Duke - all of them, black and white - were a band of brothers who came together to play at the highest level for the best coach in basketball.

I wasn't really conscious about 'The 39 Clues' movie when I wrote 'The Black Circle.'

One thing to avoid is trendy stuff, though - you gotta go timeless. Even if you want a little luxury in your life and you want to splurge on a Gucci bag, pick a great black one you can wear all the time.

There are no more white linen sofas in my house. We have a rule here: Anything below 36 inches has to be brown or black - the color of chocolate or peanut butter!

We have a lion, tiger, liger, which is the father is a lion and the mother is a tiger, black and spotted leopard, mountain lion, Asian leopard cats. Weve got a tremendous number of the exotic feline.

In its attempt to crush the Black Panthers, the FBI engineered frequent arrests on the flimsiest of pretexts.

I always liked the visuals to be choice and at the same time minimalist. And, I love black boxes. After all, that's what theatre is, it's an empty space, and it's both limited and unlimited because the space is the space, but what you can do with people's imaginations is really endless.

We put stereotypes on ourselves. Everybody does that. But I think it's just a little harder for black kids to just be who they are.

I have the utmost respect and 'aloha' for black people - who have already suffered so much due to racial discrimination and acts of hatred.

I was the black sheep of the family, and my mother never really understood me.

There's no white comic that sells tickets to black people like me. They're going to get their hair done, get a new outfit, and come out to see a white dude.

One lady told me that before she saw 'Sounder' she didn't believe black people could love each other, have deep relationships in the same way as white people.

The black community has been the foundation of the progressive community in this country for a long time.

I'm sure that you could go back and make a graph showing that all the killings of black males increased in times of economic difficulty. As a matter of fact, a black man was lynched last year.

I'm a 3rd degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and 2nd degree in karate, and I'm a licensed bodyguard.

I love the feel of good quality Italian black lace that feels delicate and really feminine.

I started wearing all black around the time I got into Nirvana. I first heard 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' when I was about 12, and I remember jumping on my bed, so excited about it.

Everything about us black people is complicated, us being here, being a minority, being a woman, all those things are complicated.

When they kept you out it was because you were black; when they let you in, it is because you are black. That's progress?

It's hard being black. You ever been black? I was black once - when I was poor.

My Dad was so open creatively that I was off in search of black turtleneck bathing suits with long sleeves.

If 'Black Balloon' had come out before 'The Mummy,' casting agents wouldn't have been able to see me for the first time in 'The Mummy.' But now that 'The Mummy' has come out before 'The Black Balloon,' that's a very good combination.

My mother was a librarian, and she worked at the Black Resource Center in South Central Los Angeles and would call me to tell me stories that she read about that were interesting to her.

There's nothing worse, I guess, than being black in an all-white church or being southern and being a liberal.

If there was no black man there would be no Rock'n'Roll. The beat, the rhythms of Africa are what created Rock'n'Roll and Jazz.

In between 15 and 20 - probably at around 17 - my interests switched from hard rock to punk rock. And then by 20 they were circling out of punk rock back into Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, the stuff that I didnt get to when I was younger.

I don't know much about my family history except that my father had straight black hair and his ancestors probably came from India.

I don't want to have people brought in simply because they are black or Asian.

Being a black artist, the first thing people want to talk about is your blackness, the importance of your blackness, and your black presence.