Famous Quotes & Sayings

Chester Himes Quotes & Sayings

Enjoy the top 15 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Chester Himes.

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Google+ Pinterest Share on Linkedin

Famous Quotes By Chester Himes

Chester Himes Quotes 2242819

Our highest ambition is to be included in the stream of American life, to be permitted to "play the game" as any other American; and is opposed to anything that aids in the exclusion; the face may be Africa, but the heart has the beat of Wall Street. — Chester Himes

Chester Himes Quotes 1073530

Growth is the surviving influence in all our lives. The tree will send up its trunk in thick profusion from land burned black by atom bombs. Children will grow from poverty and filth and oppression and develop honor, integrity, contribute to all mankind. — Chester Himes

Chester Himes Quotes 1197366

American violence is public life, it's a public way of life, it became a form, a detective story form. So I should think that any number of black writers should go into the detective story form. — Chester Himes

Chester Himes Quotes 2107519

When you get to mixing sex and religion, it will make anybody crazy. — Chester Himes

Chester Himes Quotes 1229663

Democracy is not tolerance. Democracy is a prescribed way of life erected on the premise that all men are created equal. — Chester Himes

Chester Himes Quotes 246884

what i really need is a dead man. — Chester Himes

Chester Himes Quotes 490703

If one lives in a country where racism is held valid and practiced in all ways of life eventually, no matter whether one is a racist or a victim, one comes to feel the absurdity of life ... Racism generated from whites is first of all absurd. Racism creates absurdity among blacks as a defense mechanism. — Chester Himes

Chester Himes Quotes 144400

The Harlem of my books was never meant to be real; I never called it real; I just wanted to take it away from the white man if only in my books. — Chester Himes

Chester Himes Quotes 191437

I grew to manhood in the Ohio State Penitentiary. — Chester Himes

Chester Himes Quotes 229325

I would sit in my room and become hysterical about the wild incredible story I was writing. And I thought I was writing realism. It never occurred to me that I was writing absurdity. Realism and absurdity are so similar in the lives of American blacks one cannot tell the difference. — Chester Himes

Chester Himes Quotes 841123

Martyrs are needed to create incidents. Incidents are needed to create revolutions. Revolutions are needed to create progress. — Chester Himes

Chester Himes Quotes 1152971

It seemed so illogical to punish some poor criminal for doing something that civilization taught him how to do so he could have something that civilization taught him how to want. It seemed to him as wrong as if they had hung the gun that shot the man. — Chester Himes

Chester Himes Quotes 1517801

She held him at arms' length, looked at the pipe still gripped inn his hand, then looked at his face and read him like a book. She ran the tip of her red tongue slowly across her full cushiony, sensuous lips, making them wet-red and looked him straight in the eyes with her own glassy, speckled bedroom eyes.

The man drowned.

When he came up, he stared back, passion cocked, his whole black being on a live-wire edge. Ready! Solid ready to cut throats, crack skulls, dodge police, steal hearses, drink muddy water, live in a hollow log, and take any rape-fiend chance to be once more in the arms of his high-yellow heart. — Chester Himes

Chester Himes Quotes 1904982

There is an indomitable quality within the human spirit that cannot be destroyed; a face deep within the human personality that is impregnable to all assaults. — Chester Himes

Chester Himes Quotes 2248490

Man cannot live without some knowledge of the purpose of life. If he can find no purpose in life he creates one in the inevitability of death. — Chester Himes