Seamless, careful, by-the-book performance provides no evidence of what the spider’s thinking about the fly enmeshed in its web. John Edgar Wideman Read Quote
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 Read Quote
In Haiti, as I understand it, storytelling and history itself are not a business of necessarily elucidating facts or the truth of an incident, but finding the version that is most entertaining and therefore will get retold and live in immortality. John Edgar Wideman Read Quote
I don’t have anybody living around me who has much of a sense of what I do. That’s exactly what I like. John Edgar Wideman Read Quote
I often want things to make definite statements. If I order onions sliced thinly on my hamburger, I don’t want them to come out sort of medium. But that doesn’t mean it’s a reasonable desire, in all things. John Edgar Wideman Read Quote
My father was a veteran. He fought in World War II. He was a patriot. On the other hand, he had no illusions whatsoever about how Uncle Sam had mistreated him and other black soldiers. John Edgar Wideman Read Quote
The whole idea of spellbinding, of being an entertainer, being the center of the stage, making up words – that let me know that writing is nice. John Edgar Wideman Read Quote
My particular lifetime, my individual profile, represents something very basic to African-American history and culture because I was a second generation immigrant, so to speak, from the South. My grandfather was born in South Carolina – well, both grandfathers were born in the South. John Edgar Wideman Read Quote
Silence marks time, saturates and shapes African-American art. Silences structure our music, fill the spaces – point, counterpoint – of rhythm, cadence, phrasing. John Edgar Wideman Read Quote
I think I was kind of melancholy as a kid. I spent a lot of time inside my own head, a lot of time sort of staring into space wondering the hell was going on. John Edgar Wideman Read Quote
