I feel like my job is to look at the world and to report what I see, to write what I see as honestly and directly as I can. I don't want to cut it or make it easy, but be as direct as I can.


Ta-Nehisi Coates

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

This is too much reality for a Friday.
AS GOOD AS IT GETS
Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it appears to be.
JEFFREY FRY
What we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do. There are people we trust b...
STEPHEN R. COVEY
I'm not funny. Never have been and, as far as I can tell, I never will be.
DAVID DOBKIN
Our job as writers, as far as I can tell, is to attempt to express what seems inexpressible.
NICK FLYNN
As a filmmaker, I always try not to concern myself with the outcome of things. I make the movie, and...
SUSANNE BIER
As a composer at a point where I can absolutely pick and choose what I want to do, I don't want ...
ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER
I see myself doing Harry Potter films as long as I'm enjoying it and as long as they are going t...
DANIEL RADCLIFFE
Whenever I write, I write what I find to be the way people are. I never use any symbolism at all, bu...
CAROLYN CHUTE
I don't know what it means to be a sex symbol. When I look myself on a magazine cover I don'...
JENNIFER ANISTON
I tell you, I feel like a real novice as far as horror goes.
LAWRENCE KASDAN
... As far I did it... I lost playing against my computer... and I won against my computer. So far t...
DEYTH BANGER
I look at it this way. I'm not putting age limits on what I can do. As long as I can do the job ...
DAN MARINO
You can see my decision as either a distinctive factor or as a limitation. I don't feel it is a ...
ENNIO MORRICONE
Here cometh April again, and as far as I can see the world hath more fools in it than ever.
CHARLES LAMB
I don't see money or a particular status as an actor as a goal, but I want to do the best work I...
DAN STEVENS
If I don't book a job, I like to see it not as a rejection but as a redirection to something dif...
BELLA HADID
I want to do whatever I can to survive.
SAM SIMON
I want a world without war, a world without insanity. I want to see people do well. I don't even...
TOM CRUISE
I look at it this way. I'm not putting age limits on what I can do. As long as I can do the job to h...
DAN MARINO
Honestly, I don't think we see ourselves as stars. That's what the media tags us as. I perso...
DULQUER SALMAAN
But as far as my work is concerned, I see no impediment, and various advantages, to being deaf.
STEPHANIE BEACHAM
I feel like I'm 18, with the maturity level of like a 14-year-old. I'm still the same goofba...
DUFF GOLDMAN
I don't see the desert as barren at all; I see it as full and ripe. It doesn't need to be fl...
JOY HARJO
I think every man and woman is a star. It's just a matter of realizing and becoming it. It's all a m...
MARILYN MANSON
I look at myself as someone who has been very lucky - my job is also what I enjoy most in the world,...
FERNANDO ALONSO
As far I'm working on The life Of one Kid 7... continue!
DEYTH BANGER
Aye, well, I've got my garden.
LIKE I
I told my Nike representative, 'Why didn't you guys use me for this?''' Williams said, laughing.
LIKE I
On the interception, I was out of bounds,
LIKE I
casually made his 'abort black fetuses' argument.
LIKE I
I can field my position. If I start worrying about being ready for a line drive too soon that means ...
LIKE I
I told him that he played a great game,'' said Falcons quarterback Michael Vick , who like Manning w...
LIKE I
I was so concerned with getting the ball out of my hands and not taking the sack, that sometimes I t...
LIKE I
I knew I had to throw the ball better,'' Manning said of his poor start.
LIKE I
I think the reason that I have that title or that moniker is because people don't know what to expec...
LIKE I
You're either ready and prepared to take on the task, or you're not,'' he said.
LIKE I
I did not have one butterfly out there today,'' he said.
LIKE I
Married to the Mob.
LIKE I
Hello you're with Drudge.
LIKE I
I don't expect Christian Fundamentalists to reach out to me. They are adamant that homosexuals are i...
LIKE I
throw enough shit at the wall and some should stick?
LIKE I
I'm not happy, that's all I can say about it,'' he said.
LIKE I
I write what I want to write, and then, when it's finished, I use my judgment to see whether or ...
JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN
When a friend is sick, I see the situation for what it is, not what it isn't, and I offer to hel...
ANDREW J. BERNSTEIN
I like them all - I don't always approve. I see myself as a sort of benevolent uncle to these ch...
PATRICK MARBER
I know I'm really lucky to do what I do, but sometimes with the hours and the travelling, I don&...
OLLY MURS
I realised that if you get yourself labeled as the funny one, people don't look any further. I&#...
CATHERINE TATE
I don't know what my appeal is. I can see I've got blue eyes and don't look like the Hun...
RUTGER HAUER
If it's about what I like, I like opera as a music and deathstep and dubstep.
DEYTH BANGER
Get this (economic plan) passed. Later on, we can all debate it.
, TO NEW HAMPSHIRE LEGISLATORS
My life is full of drama, and I don't have time to worry about something as petty as what I look...
ADELE
I don't want to compare myself to him - I don't want people to see me as this great genius -...
MICHEL GONDRY
And if you can’t shape your life the way you want, at least try as much as you can not to degrade ...
CONSTANTINOS P. CAVAFIS
As far as I can judge, not much good can be done without disturbing something or somebody.
EDWARD BLAKE
As far as I can tell, most actors' main motivation is self-doubt and neuroses.
DANIEL RADCLIFFE
I want to write, direct, produce, but in steps. I want to take steps. I don't want to just jump ...
SNOOP DOGG
I will have my publicist pull pictures of the way I look at events so I can see, 'Oh, that cut i...
ALLISON WILLIAMS
I'm comfortable having a specific audience to write to. I like the idea that my audience doesn&#...
DAVE SIM
You know what I want? The answer is, I truly don't know what I want. I don't want to do a te...
MICHAEL J. FOX
You can't save the world with music. But I can try. I have the same job as Bruce Springsteen. I ...
BRANDON FLOWERS
I'm a carb queen. I'll always order macaroni and cheese, but I don't want it to be fancy...
DREW BARRYMORE
I've always loved music and held it as a sacred thing that I can't touch, as I don't rea...
AARON KOBLIN
As far as sustaining our popularity, I believe we can.
VINCE MCMAHON
I could have been an architect, but I don't think I'd have been very happy. Nearly all moder...
ROGER WATERS
To suggest that God specifically created a worm to torture small African children is blasphemy as fa...
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH
I feel like everything I do in the hip-hop world has an influence. People don't really notice wh...
ASAP ROCKY
People say I am the king of painful shoes. I don't want to create painful shoes, but it is not m...
CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN
I think that maybe that's my weakness, in that I don't know how to do it, so I just do what ...
AARON ECKHART
Sylvester has a great popular sense, as good as any writer I've ever worked with. He knows what ...
TED KOTCHEFF
I don't take it very seriously. You shouldn't let your success get to your head or failure g...
RAKUL PREET SINGH
I've spent a long time learning my way around a stage as an actor, but this I don't know as ...
LESLIE ODOM, JR.
Even if you can't relate to what I'm singing, I hope you can believe in it and see it as som...
HALSEY
I sleep as much as I want. I'll sleep, like, 11 hours, unless I'm working. Sometimes I do fe...
HEATHER GRAHAM
In a theater, the part is mine and I can control it as I want to. In the movies, I don't have di...
MAX VON SYDOW
I want to do what I can lend my talents to, but I want it to be as a human being and not as a two-di...
GENE WILDER
I'm not a Method actor. I don't believe acting should be psychodrama. I look within myself a...
JOHN MALKOVICH
Like, with one arm I know I can surf, but competitive surfing can be really frustrating, and sometim...
BETHANY HAMILTON
I make it clear why I write as I do and why other poets write as they do. After hundreds of experime...
CARL SANDBURG
I don't really approach stories to make them different from other stuff I've seen, I just tr...
SAM RAIMI
Lord take me as I am just the way I am. Set my soul ablaze, never quench the flame
VENES
Success for me means being able to work. I don't look at so much at what I've done as much a...
PHYLICIA RASHAD
I just don't see myself as retiring. As long as I'm healthy and can play the drums, that'...
BILL KREUTZMANN
To me, every kitchen appliance is useful and nothing's overrated. When I look at my little espre...
GRANT ACHATZ
My mind has become somewhat like a book. What I mean by that is that when I look at the world, I see...
AVI
I really honestly can't see myself as a lawyer. It's pretty much safe to say I'll never ...
VANCE JOY
I can remember back as far as age 8, performing with the Boston Folk Song Society. It was a Woody Gu...
FRANK BLACK
I can't really see myself as an artist. Now, to step out here and there, do it when I feel like ...
T.I.
I don't have my novel outlined, and I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old la...
FLANNERY O'CONNOR
The world that I am coming from, hip-hop, is so regurgitated and repetitive that some people are use...
KID CUDI
I can't control what's fair and unfair. I can't control the nature of the business or th...
AISHA TYLER
Honestly, I don't look at it as work because I have way too much fun on set to actually classify...
BILLY UNGER
Stress and looks are directly connected as far as I am concerned. If you are happy, you look good.
MAHESH BABU
I don't see how can I offend Mexicans with the truth. It is what Mexicans want to hear.
ADOLFO AGUILAR ZINSER
I don't care what you say about me anymore! I don't care what you write about me anymore. I ...
GERRY COONEY
I don't see myself as the boss. I sing and write the songs, and it would feel strange if somebod...
GAVIN ROSSDALE
As far as I can see, it's not important that we have free will, just as long as we have the illu...
ALAN MOORE
You see, we are here, as far as I can tell, to help each other; our brothers, our sisters, our frien...
STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN
As long as I'm between home and the clinic I do all right. But out in the real world, I feel like pr...
JULIE GREGORY
I hate to sound like a romantic adolescent, but I believe artists don't generally see art as a c...
CHARLES SAATCHI

More Ta-Nehisi Coates

I think riots happen when communities are under pressure for long periods of time. That's not a ...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I love living around black people. Home is home. We suffer under racism and the physical deprivation...
TA-NEHISI COATES
It meant something to see people who looked like me in comic books. It was this beautiful place that...
TA-NEHISI COATES
We are all losers in comparison to Malala Yousafzai. But we are not all geniuses. Like me.
TA-NEHISI COATES
We look at young black kids with a scowl on their face, walking a certain way down the block with th...
TA-NEHISI COATES
My father was so very afraid. I felt it in the sting of his black leather belt, which he applied wit...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I haven't checked, but I highly suspect that chickens evolved from an egg-laying ancestor, which...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I love America the way I love my family - I was born into it. And there's no escape out of it.
TA-NEHISI COATES
'White America' is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and contro...
TA-NEHISI COATES
One of the things we tell ourselves as African-Americans is if we work hard, play by the rules, we d...
TA-NEHISI COATES
We want to believe racism is an artifact of the past, and if you have a political massacre, that con...
TA-NEHISI COATES
My belief is in the chaos of the world and that you have to find your peace within the chaos and tha...
TA-NEHISI COATES
The country in which reparations actually happen is a very different one than the one we live in.
TA-NEHISI COATES
The soul is part of the body. The mind is part of the body. When folks do physical violence to black...
TA-NEHISI COATES
When people think about reparations, they immediately think about people who've been dead for 10...
TA-NEHISI COATES
When you write, you're inside the project. You can't really think about the reception. It ha...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I think a lot about the private emotions of black people - what we feel and yet is rarely publicly e...
TA-NEHISI COATES
The plunder of black communities is not a bump along the road, but it is, in fact, the road itself t...
TA-NEHISI COATES
Racism is a physical experience.
TA-NEHISI COATES
There are plenty of African-Americans in this country - and I would say this goes right up to the Wh...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I feel some need to represent where I'm from. But ultimately, I think my only real responsibilit...
TA-NEHISI COATES
There are African-American families around this country - a large, large number of African-American ...
TA-NEHISI COATES
African Americans are one of the oldest ethnic groups in this country. We been here since the beginn...
TA-NEHISI COATES
We have this long history of racism in this country, and as it happens, the criminal justice system ...
TA-NEHISI COATES
The relationship between violence and nonviolence in this country is interesting. The fact of the ma...
TA-NEHISI COATES
Forgiveness is a big part of - especially post-civil rights movement - is a big part of African-Amer...
TA-NEHISI COATES
The lives of African-Americans in this country are characterized by violence for most of our history...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I enjoy the challenge of trying to say things beautifully. The message is secondary in that sense. O...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I wasn't the biggest Captain America fan, but increasingly, I see him as a great character. Wint...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I just want to be really clear about this: Anyone who has read Colin Powell's biography - there&...
TA-NEHISI COATES
When I see the Confederate flag, I see the attempt to raise an empire in slavery. It really, really ...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I was born in West Baltimore, lived in a situation in which violence was everywhere.
TA-NEHISI COATES
It's hard for me to view Baltimore outside the context of what Baltimore has always been in my m...
TA-NEHISI COATES
You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to constrict yourse...
TA-NEHISI COATES
There was no United States before slavery. I am sure somebody can make some sort of argument about m...
TA-NEHISI COATES
Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader ...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I'm the descendant of enslaved black people in this country. You could've been born in 1820 ...
TA-NEHISI COATES
It was mostly through pop culture, through hip-hop, through Dungeons & Dragons and comic books t...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I was about 13 or 14 when I heard Malcolm X's speech 'Message to the Grass Roots.'
TA-NEHISI COATES
As an African-American, we stand on the shoulders of people who fought despite not seeing victories ...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I constantly write about my safety walking to and from school, and then I would come home at night, ...
TA-NEHISI COATES
You can't tolerate anybody attempting to threaten or intimidate your body. You must respond with...
TA-NEHISI COATES
The popular mocking of reparations as a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intelle...
TA-NEHISI COATES
Won't reparations divide us? Not any more than we are already divided. The wealth gap merely puts a ...
TA-NEHISI COATES
[whiteness] has no real meaning divorced from the machinery of criminal power. The new people were s...
TA-NEHISI COATES
When people who are not black are interested in what I do, frankly, I'm always surprised. I don&...
TA-NEHISI COATES
My dad always associated information with liberation. He was very much in that Malcolm X tradition.
TA-NEHISI COATES
I was peace pipes and treaties. My style was to talk and duck. It was an animal tactic, playing dead...
TA-NEHISI COATES
The black people in these films seemed to love the worst things in life—love the dogs that rent th...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I remembered that once, as a child, I was filled with wonder, that I had marveled at tri-folded scie...
TA-NEHISI COATES
You may have heard the talk of diversity, sensitivity training, and body cameras. These are all fine...
TA-NEHISI COATES
My mother and father were always pushing me away from secondhand answers—even the answers they the...
TA-NEHISI COATES
You must resist the common urge toward the comforting narrative of divine law, toward fairy tales th...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I think at places like 'Slate' or the magazine where I work, there was a really poor record ...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I do understand how hate eats at the soul and how to purge yourself of hate.
TA-NEHISI COATES
You can oppose reparations all you want, but you got to know the facts. You really, really do.
TA-NEHISI COATES
I would not have you descend into your own dream. I would have you be a conscious citizen of this te...
TA-NEHISI COATES
The essential relationship across American history between black people and white people is one of e...
TA-NEHISI COATES
The American real-estate industry believed segregation to be a moral principle. As late as 1950, the...
TA-NEHISI COATES
[Clyde Ross] was stationed in California. He found that he could go into stores without being bother...
TA-NEHISI COATES
From the 1930s through the 1960s, black people across the country were largely cut out of the legiti...
TA-NEHISI COATES
In the 1920s, Jim Crow Mississippi was, in all facets of society, a kleptocracy.
TA-NEHISI COATES
You do not give your precious body to the billy clubs of Birmingham sheriffs, nor to the insidious a...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I would say as a journalist, I would envision travelling to other countries that have had to reckon ...
TA-NEHISI COATES
When President Roosevelt signed Social Security into law in 1935, 65 percent of African Americans na...
TA-NEHISI COATES
Our art is made in cities like New York by people who are running from other places. They feel thems...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I do not believe we can stop them, Samori, because they must ultimately stop themselves. And still I...
TA-NEHISI COATES
Dylan's voice was awful, an aged quaver that sounded nothing like the deep-throated or silky R&B...
TA-NEHISI COATES
In 2001, the Associated Press published a three-part investigation into the theft of black-owned lan...
TA-NEHISI COATES
To be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world, before al...
TA-NEHISI COATES
Superheroes are best imagined in comic books. The union between the written word, the image, and the...
TA-NEHISI COATES
The spirit and soul are the body and brain, which are destructible-that is precisely why they are so...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I know now that all people hunger for a noble, unsullied past, that as sure as the black nationalist...
TA-NEHISI COATES
In Chicago and across the country, whites looking to achieve the American dream could rely on a legi...
TA-NEHISI COATES
But race is the child of racism, not the father. And the process of naming “the people” has neve...
TA-NEHISI COATES
The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free.
TA-NEHISI COATES
I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interest...
TA-NEHISI COATES
One Saturday morning last May, I joined the presidential motorcade as it slipped out of the southern...
TA-NEHISI COATES
You have been cast into a race in which the wind is always at your face and the hounds are always at...
TA-NEHISI COATES
I think it was like playing somebody in tennis who's a little better than you. You get better just b...
AL COATES
There are things that went wrong in the front office and the chain of command. But those are things ...
AL COATES
Particularly in the first period, he made two or three key saves that if one or two go in, maybe cha...
AL COATES
Hopefully we can get through this quickly and get back to full strength.
AL COATES
For the most part, the game had been decided by then. We had a really solid game plan and the team e...
AL COATES
I'm so not scary. I'm a pussycat. But what are you going to do, right? I mean, these cheekbo...
KIM COATES
It was a lot more fun working with film.
ANNE COATES
I like meeting the people. I'm a theatre person.
ANNE COATES
Take jobs where you can.
ANNE COATES
Preview days are the worst days of your life.
ANNE COATES
Stephen shoots just enough coverage.
ANNE COATES
Otherwise the investment which has gone in has been a waste up until now.
ANDREW COATES
In general, one has to ask why complete the International Space Station anyway. One worries about pu...
ANDREW COATES
The knock-on effects to the International Space Station are quite dramatic ... (long delays) could p...
ANDREW COATES
As water comes off the rings, it is split by sunlight; the resulting hydrogen and atomic oxygen are ...
ANDREW COATES
Venus provides an extreme test for the atmospheric physics models that we have for Earth.
ANDREW COATES
Venus was born with the same sorts of constituents as Earth, which means there was some water in the...
ANDREW COATES
There never was a chip, it is said, that Bill Gates couldn't slow down with a new batch of features.
JAMES COATES
I know people have tattooed my 'Sons of Anarchy' photos, they've painted them, on their ...
KIM COATES
What we generally fail to realize is that in talking today to the Indians we are face to face with t...
AUSTIN COATES
When I decided to go to university I didn't know what I wanted to do. When I had an opportunity ...
KIM COATES
These volunteers are wonderful. Some have been here since 5:30 this morning setting up and directing...
CAROLYN COATES
They want a jury that can say, 'I've heard about this case, but I can set aside what I've heard, fol...
BILL COATES
We were busy everyday, it didn't really get slow until we had that window when we were coming home.
BILL COATES
I wasn't going to die wondering why we didn't win, like we didn't win (when competing with) Brisbane...
JOHN COATES
The Ivy League is definitely part of the third that's a reach. The [CAA] conference itself is much b...
ROY COATES
The Ivy League is a step up for the most part.
ROY COATES
Limonene has been around forever, carbon dioxide as well. What we've been able to do is devise this ...
GEOFFREY COATES
Limonene has been around forever, carbon dioxide as well. What we've been able to do is devise this ...
GEOFFREY COATES
This has always been about the fact that the Michigan wine industry has been so successful that (dis...
RICK COATES
And now they're looking at having the rules change.
RICK COATES
I know for a fact that most of our smaller wineries would have to close up under provisions of that ...
RICK COATES
The typical exposure has been an occasional lapse for a variety of reasons -- the condom broke, the ...
TOM COATES
Stadiums are generally going to be used 85 or 90 times a year - between a couple of games prior to t...
DENNIS COATES
If you think they're going to substitute between different kinds of spending, then there's no new sp...
DENNIS COATES
Should the Colts happen to win the Super Bowl, that would have an effect.
DENNIS COATES
They've changed their stance, which is good, which is a positive and the market has taken that posit...
MICHAEL COATES
Emily and Sarah were very outstanding. Elena also did quite well.
ROY COATES
We appreciate all our sponsors who support us here at the center.
CAROLYN COATES
We also have our own library, because sometimes seniors forget about taking books back and they have...
CAROLYN COATES
They focused on their game, not searching on the screens to see who's got what. Amy was totally rela...
TOM COATES
Getting people stranded on their rooftops to safety is a priority. We want to get people out because...
FRANK COATES
Looters are hitting food stores, they're hitting department stores, they're in jewelry stores and gu...
FRANK COATES
People need to take this very seriously and get to a safe area while they can.
FRANK COATES
I'm getting deluged by people wanting to know more, ... It's fun to talk to people envisioning other...
GEOFFREY COATES
We're really excited about not only using a byproduct from the orange juice industry but also from t...
GEOFFREY COATES
The issues are still on the table, but there's been no decision at this time,
LINDA COATES
That means that just about every mare that could have gotten pregnant did, ... This is the first tim...
LINDA COATES
If the public decides they're not in favor of fertility control, we have only one option left - gath...
LINDA COATES
That means that just about every mare that could have gotten pregnant did, ... This is the first tim...
LINDA COATES
It means if the board doesn't make a ruling in 45 days, we'll have to shut the program down for this...
LINDA COATES
They seem to be able to handle these catastrophic events and survive,
LINDA COATES
The longer you drift the more you will learn. What you learn affects the kind of person you end up t...
CHANG TA-CHUN
The best, the most exquisite automobile is a walking stick; and one of the finest things in life is ...
ROBERT COATES HOLLIDAY
Greatness is achieving something unimaginable and doing that feat with ease
LEE S COATES
Is there anywhere else to sleep tonight... Anywhere?' I pleaded.
There's Mei's office, but you'...
TA'AFULI ANDREW FIU