Ancestors Quote by John Edgar Wideman

My mother loved my father. From my view, she let him get away with too much. It broke my heart to see him in…

— John Edgar Wideman

Too much is made for us; too much is given to us - even those of us who are underprivileged. The poverty is given…

— John Edgar Wideman

A great artist transforms our world, removes scales from our eyes, plugs from our ears, gloves from our fingertips, teaches us to perceive reality…

— John Edgar Wideman

That's what writing is: it's imagining that you can make a world. That's what basketball is, too: it's imagining the game as a world.

— John Edgar Wideman

I'm very hard-nosed and cold-blooded and I can walk past a drowning man. If I have someplace else to go, well, tough s**t. I…

— John Edgar Wideman

I get off on anticipating and waiting much more than I get off on the actual event.

— John Edgar Wideman

You have to be a minor superhero just to get to be a dignified man, and that's kind of exacerbated for men of color.

— John Edgar Wideman

Stories are told over time, and so they naturally accrue meanings.

— John Edgar Wideman

That's been my routine for years and years... Up early before everybody else, before I get connected, before I get bugged, before I have…

— John Edgar Wideman

My father was intelligent and closed-mouthed. He knew a lot more than what he was ever going to tell you.

— John Edgar Wideman

What I wanted to do in talking about basketball in 'Hoop Roots' was retrieve the game as something to participate in, not to watch.

— John Edgar Wideman

Books are an attempt to control something that's uncontrollable. That's one of the beauties of African American life. There was this thing called slavery…

— John Edgar Wideman