Mosley Quotes & Sayings

When you get old you begin to understand that no one talks unless someone listens, and no one knows nuthin' less somebody else can understand. — Walter Mosley

What if the need to have a hard time is built into human nature? — Nicholas Mosley

Time is like a river," Coydog had told the boy. "It come up behind ya hard and just keep right on goin'. You couldn't stop it no more than you could fly away. — Walter Mosley

When you talk about painters and you talk about painters painting masterpieces, there is no painter who painted only one painting and that was a masterpiece. You have to do a whole bunch of paintings to get to the place of mastering your craft. — Walter Mosley

I've learned recently to love imperfection a lot because it shines such a big light on God's grace. And if someone has grace for you that's when you feel their love the most and they see you for who you are and they love you anyway. — Lacey Mosley

People settle for so much less because they find their identities in the world's fickle and untrue opinions. God made you royal with His blood. Live. — Lacey Mosley

The love of writing comes at a very early age. For me, for instance, comic books so affected me. And a lot of people who come up to me and start talking about writing, when I start talking to them about the "Fantastic Four," they look at me aghast. They say, "'The Fantastic Four?' That's not literature." I say, "Yeah, but it was when I was 11 years old." This was literature. — Walter Mosley

I always tell people, if a young girl read "Beloved" as her first novel, she'd have to kill either herself or her mother, because in "Beloved" you have a mother killing their children. This is not something a child would accept very easily. And would never understand. — Walter Mosley

My job is writing for people to enjoy and then writing about a broader and a deeper world. — Walter Mosley

I'm sorry he's dead but I am happier, by far, that he lived. — Walter Mosley

You know, one of the interesting things you find about writing fiction is that any fiction you write has to be political. Otherwise, it goes into the realm of fantasy. So like, if you write about a woman in America in 1910, if you don't write that she can't really control her property, that she can't - doesn't have any say over her children, that she can't vote - if you don't put that in it, then it's a fantasy. Like, well, how is her life informed? That's true about everybody. If you write about black people, you write about white men, I mean, it has to be political. A lot of people don't realize that, it seems. — Walter Mosley

The great man say that life is pain," Coydog had said over eighty-five years before. "That mean if you love life, then you love the hurt come along wit' it. Now, if that ain't the blues, I don't know what is. — Walter Mosley

I like to read either in motion or in water ... I am happiest reading in the bathtub. — Walter Mosley

I'm most inspired by people who are doing what they love in a big, loud way. And big and loud doesn't always have to be big and loud. Sometimes these people can appear as a quiet storm, but in their full expression everyone feels the impact. — Karla Cheatham Mosley

Better to listen to the gospel than to a mortal leader. — Walter Mosley

If there's another writer, like Ross McDonald or Raymond Chandler, and all they're writing are mysteries, they won't be accepted," he said. "And that's problematic. A lot of so-called literary novels are just not very good. They're not well-written, they're not well-thought-out. They have pyrotechnics of intelligence.
"On the other hand, some of the best writers and speculative ideas are in science-fiction. The science-fiction genre is completely, completely segregated. And these people are writing good stuff. They're writing about where you're going, which means they're talking about where you are. — Walter Mosley

I've written a lot of really good books. Now we'll see if I can write any more good books. I mean there's a chance I won't, but I'm going to try. — Walter Mosley

The law," he continued, "is made by the rich people so that the poor people can't get ahead ... — Walter Mosley

The biggest misconception that people have about the literary life is the romance of it. That a writer has this large world available to him or her of people, of ideas, of experiences, of interchange of ideas. — Walter Mosley

It's not that racism doesn't exist. Lots of people in New York, and elsewhere, hate because of color and gender, religion and national origin. It's just that I rarely worry about those things because there's a real world underneath all that nonsense; a world that demands my attention almost every second of the day.
Racism is a luxury in a world where resources are scarce, where economic competition is an armed sport, in a world where even the atmosphere is plotting against you. In an arena like that racism is more of a halftime entertainment, a favorite sitcom when the day is done. — Walter Mosley

If everybody in the world despises you and hates you, sees your features as ugly and simian, makes jokes about your ways of talking, calls you stupid and beneath contempt; if you have no history, no heroes, and no future where a hero might lead, then you might begin to hate yourself.... And then one hot summer's night you just erupt and go burning and shooting and nobody seems to know why. — Walter Mosley

Nobody can count Shane Mosley out. He is a good, good fighter, especially when he fights an aggressive opponent like Manny Pacquiao. — Bob Arum

The mark of a living thing is to be involved in opposites (impossibilities): the living cell that has to be continually adapting itself to stay alive, with its identity. — Nicholas Mosley

Flying, for some reason, has never been my favorite thing, but after taking some aviation classes and reading about it and learning about it ... They've been doing this for over a hundred years, they've been to the moon and back; they kind of have a good system going here. — Michael Mosley

The first heart you win over is that casting director. In first meetings, they'll be the ones who see your pitch for the character. And then as you get further up, they'll be the ones reading with you in front of the network. — Michael Mosley

In the sixth grade, I auditioned for a play called 'Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.' I got the lead, and I was terrified, but I went and did it. — Michael Mosley

Those who march with us will certainly face abuse, misunderstanding, bitter animosity, and possibly the ferocity of struggle and of danger. In return, we can only offer to them the deep belief that they are fighting that a great land may live. — Oswald Mosley

The Glory is the issue to me. Money comes and goes, but a legacy stays forever. I hate to lose — Shane Mosley

I used to worry about money and career and what was going to happen. How was I gonna succeed or fail in the world? And I thought about it enough that I'm no longer worried about it. I'm not ... I don't worry about what's gonna happen in my life. I don't worry about telling me about dying, my own mortality. That's a given. — Walter Mosley

We live in capitalism, and capitalism is defined by the production line, and the production line is defined by specificity. If you see yourself as an artist, which I do, then you can't be limited by that. You can't let somebody tell you, 'Well, you can only draw this kind of picture or write that kind of book.' — Walter Mosley

THERE ARE FEW THINGS as beautiful as a glass bottle filled with deep amber whiskey. Liquor shines when the light hits it, reminiscent of precious things like jewels and gold. But whiskey is better than some lifeless bracelet or coronet. Whiskey is a living thing capable of any emotion that you are. It's love and deep laughter and brotherhood of the type that bonds nations together. Whiskey is your friend when nobody else comes around. And whiskey is solace that holds you tighter than most lovers can. I thought all that while looking at my sealed bottle. And I knew for a fact that it was all true. True the way a lover's pillow talk is true. True the way a mother's dreams for her napping infant are true. But the whiskey mind couldn't think its way out of the problems I had. So I took Mr. Seagram's, put him in his box, and placed him up on the shelf where he belonged. — Walter Mosley

My matchmakers said Shane would make the most entertaining fight for the fans. For pure name recognition Shane Mosley is the best fighter for marketability. — Bob Arum

Science fiction [is] the kind of writing that prepares us for the necessary mutations brought about in society from an ever changing technological world and as a result. The mainstream hasn't excluded SF; the mainstream has excluded itself. No one told Jules Verne he was a science fiction writer, but he invented the 20th century. — Walter Mosley

Ultimately, for me, I had an underlying belief or fear that I'm not enough as I am. Sometimes I discover those kinds of thoughts still lurking in my subconscious, and the best thing I can do is show up anyway. — Karla Cheatham Mosley

All great popular literature today one day will be seen as great literature and will no longer be seen as popular literature. — Walter Mosley

Why does Mosley always speak as though he were a feudal landlord abusing tenants who are in arrears with their rent ? — Clement Attlee

Anyone who knows how difficult it is to keep a secret among three men - particularly if they are married - knows how absurd is the idea of a worldwide secret conspiracy consciously controlling all mankind by its financial power; in real, clear analysis. — Oswald Mosley

There are as many kinds of love as there are flowers and bugs put together but men and women and their needs are all the same. — Walter Mosley

Love is in prospect or retrospect, the present is ecstasy. — Nicholas Mosley

Don't test God and make some tests for him. That doesn't make any sense. Besides that he can do anything, above everything you could ask. He wants your heart to be real. He wants a volunteering lover. That's why he gives you a choice. He can tell a tree to grow and it will grow. But it's up to you to decide whether you obey him or not, he gave you a will. Even though he didn't give a tree a will, he gave you a will. And he says: "I want you to grow, will you grow? I want you to love me, will you love me? Like I love you, I love you so much." — Lacey Mosley

Sure can. But you know a white man got to go through sumpin' 'fore he could call a black man friend. White man got to see the shit an' smell it too before he could really know a black friend." Jean-Paul — Walter Mosley

I think that the power over death and life is the greatest strength that any person can have. It trumps sex and wealth. If I'm willing to die no one can master me. — Walter Mosley

You should wait until the book is finished before making a judgment on its content. By the time you have gone through twenty drafts, the characters may have developed lives of their own, completely separate from the people you based them on in the beginning. And even if someone, at some time, gets upset with your words - so what? Live your life, sing your song. Anyone who loves you will want you to have that. — Walter Mosley

I definitely think that typecasting is something that happens all the time. — Michael Mosley

It's the strongest love that makes the greatest treachery. The worst thing you can say to somebody is that you will be there no matter what and then fail to show. — Walter Mosley

After these three novels I gave up writing novels for a time; I was dissatisfied with romantic doom, yet didn't see much way around it. — Nicholas Mosley

I write every day and I just love doing it. It's just a wonderful thing. Some of my stories work, some of them don't work. Some of them are wild and I love them, but they certainly don't fit into any kind of a normal system that I know about. — Walter Mosley

It always strikes me how almost unbelievably bad are the early versions of my novels. — Nicholas Mosley

Britains still commemorate the Battle of Cable Street in London. There are still pop songs in Britain that reference Sir Oswald Mosley and his black shirts. — Rachel Maddow

A lot of people ... kind of make heroes that are separate from us, people who are, you know, like ... John Wayne and Errol Flynn and, you know, Denzel Washington ... people who are different, who are larger than life. — Walter Mosley

The process of writing a novel is like taking a journey by boat. You have to continually set yourself on course. If you get distracted or allow yourself to drift, you will never make it to the destination. It's not like highly defined train tracks or a highway; this is a path that you are creating discovering. The journey is your narrative. Keep to it and there will be a tale told. — Walter Mosley

That would be like me tellin' a gosling not to migrate down south his first mature season. You got to go. Got to. There's gonna be snakes and foxes, and in your case, [ ... ], there might even be men with guns. — Walter Mosley

HBO and I have a deal to at least try to make a television series from the Leonid McGill stories. We're going to start with the first novel, 'The Long Fall.' — Walter Mosley

When I fail or make a mistake, I ask myself what lesson I was supposed to learn or how I can show up differently next time. — Karla Cheatham Mosley

That was why so many Jews back then understood the American Negro; in Europe the Jew had been a Negro for more than a thousand years. — Walter Mosley

Mosley is bigger than me. He's fast and his hand speed is still there. He's faster than most of my opponents. He's also preparing hard and he's also good, so we never underestimate our opponent. — Manny Pacquiao

The conceit of literary intellectuals is to imagine that other people don't have ideas so that they can assume a superior status by having their own... — Nicholas Mosley

When you deal with a person who's experiencing dementia, you can see where they're struggling with knowledge. You can see what they forget completely, what they forget but they know what they once knew. You can tell how they're trying to remember. — Walter Mosley

Well, first of all if it wasn't for being saved by Jesus, I would not be alive. I would be dead. Some people say Jesus saved their soul ... Well, maybe Jesus saved my soul spiritually, but He also saved my life physically. Every aspect of my life today has to do with the fact that Jesus saved my life. — Lacey Mosley

Your book grows. The early part of your book is growing still while you are writing the later part of your book. — Walter Mosley

You are not a burden, an accident, or a mistake. You are meant for amazing things that you can't even imagine for yourself. — Lacey Sturm

I believe that a writer has to tell what they think is the truth in a human experience. The truth of the human experience cannot escape the political. — Walter Mosley

I know how bad a thing it is to be a slave and I know how terrible it was but I don't believe that there's a free person in the whole world that knows how good a cup full of water can taste. Because you have to be a deprived slave, to be kept waiting for your water like we were to really appreciate how good just one swallow can be. When we finally got a drop on our tongues it was like something straight from the hands of the Almighty. — Walter Mosley

Freedom is a state of mind, I said wondering where I'd heard it before, not a state of being. We are all slaves to gravity and morality and the vicissitudes of nature. Our genes govern us much more than we'd like to think. Our bodies can not know absolute freedom but our minds can, can at least try. — Walter Mosley

The first thing you have to know about writing is that it is something you must do everyday. There are two reasons for this rule: Getting the work done and connecting with your unconscious mind. — Walter Mosley

But all of those things were possible back then even though nobody — Walter Mosley

- I was an American citizen too; a citizen who had to watch his step, a citizen who had to distrust the police and the government, public opinion, and even the history taught in schools. It was odd that such negative thoughts would invigorate me. But knowing the truth, no matter how bad it was, gave you some chance, a little bit of an edge. — Walter Mosley

There are times in your life when things line up and Fate takes a hand in your future," Ptolemy remembered Coydog saying. "When that happens, you got to move quick and take advantage of the sitchiation or you'll never know what might have been."
"How do I know when it's time to move quick?" L'il Pea asked.
"When somethin' big happens and then somethin' else come up. — Walter Mosley

I think that computer programming shows in my writing. Often when I write about computer programmers I'll write about the way that they see the world and they structure the world. — Walter Mosley

Your people have lost the vision and vitality of your ancestors (73). — Walter Mosley

We will be one step down from the Creator," she said, her olive-hued face tightening into an expression that she considered dramatic. "Imagining a world and then making it. — Walter Mosley

I smiled and unraveled a plan that some strategic command at the back of my mind had been hatching while the woman in me made love to Rosetta Jeanette Lawson in the guise of a man. — Walter Mosley

Lawyer even sounds like liar. — Walter Mosley

I understood about fear. And I knew better than anyone in that room what Mouse was capable of. But still I had been raised in a place where to show your fear was worse than cowardice. It was suicide, a sin. — Walter Mosley

If they tell the police, the police will find out she was driving, and her career will be put into hell. — Nicholas Mosley

We have messed-up lives, but we're good people and we have grace. And even though we don't have to do good for God to love us, I want to do good for Him. — Lacey Mosley

Since the war I have stressed altogether five main objectives. The true union of Europe; the union of government with science; the power of government to act rapidly and decisively, subject to parliamentary control; the effective leadership of government to solve the economic problem by use of the wage-price mechanism at the two key-points of the modern industrial world; and a clearly defined purpose for a movement of humanity to ever higher forms. — Oswald Mosley

Oster blender. I poured that concoction into a griddle of sizzling butter, then sprinkled diced strawberries on the wet side. Three — Walter Mosley

Any seed or insect or lizard or mammal that found itself in LA had to believe that there was a chance to thrive. Living in Southern California was like waking up in a children's book titled Would Be If I Could Be. — Walter Mosley

Young people live exactly today ... and they live in the immediacy of their world. And it's important for us, people from older generations to realize that a lot of our values, a lot of our truths are no longer truths, are no longer valuable. — Walter Mosley

Poetry teaches us music, metaphor, condensation and specificity. — Walter Mosley

Angel, you got checkout girls in these here grocery stores cain't feed their own kids right, jazz musicians workin' for the post office because music don't pay the charge of admission to a nightclub. You might love your work but one day you wake up and find that your work don't love you. — Walter Mosley

People don't understand how hard it is to get recognized, how hard it is to get people to read your books. How hard it is to get people to even to understand what they're reading when they're talking to you about their books. — Walter Mosley

When I went to school, there were no Black philosophers, at least none that I was aware of, who were recognized by Western universities. — Walter Mosley

Happy endings? The only ending life allows us is death, and that's rarely happy. So, until my happy death, I have to fill my life: fill it with monochrome feels and leading ladies. — Stephen Mosley

Losing my parents really set me adrift in more ways than one. It's not just losing them. It's losing the possibility of family. — Walter Mosley

Let me speak to your boss I said. Six magic words that roil deep in the bowels of anymore collecting a paycheck on a biweekly basis. It's like winking at a leprechaun: he has to give up his pot of gold, and yet no one knows why. — Walter Mosley

Maybe that's what they're afraid of. Maybe they don't want these children to make up their own minds. Maybe if they did that, the world would change. — Walter Mosley

There's many things that I am. And all of those things come together at some point. If somebody wants to limit me, you know and they'll say, 'Well, this is Walter Mosley, the mystery writer.' I don't like that. Because I do many things. — Walter Mosley

One wouldn't want to say that what makes a good writer is the number of books that the writer wrote because you could write a whole number of bad books. Books that don't work, mediocre books, or there's a whole bunch of people in the pulp tradition who have done that. They just wrote ... and actually they didn't write a whole bunch of books, they just wrote one book many times. — Walter Mosley

I think of writers as explorers, not necessarily as detectives. So there is certainly detecting that is going on, but they're explorers. — Walter Mosley

After all, people are people. Many become friends with their coworkers. Many have worked with their coworkers at previous companies. — Eric Mosley

I couldn't see why it shouldn't be my one hundred dollars. — Walter Mosley

I gave my children the kind of dreams they could live by, but dreams are like oceans, Mr. McGill. If they're worth a damn they're bigger than the dreamer, and sometimes, when the one dreaming wants to be as big as what they imagine, the wave pulls'em down. — Walter Mosley

There is no reason to be alarmed by benign, occasional, short-term hunger. Given base-level good health, you will not perish. You won't collapse in a heap and need to be rescued by the cat. Your body is designed to go without food for longish periods, even if it has lost the skill through years of grazing, picking, and snacking. Research has found that modern humans tend to mistake a whole range of emotions for hunger.6 We eat when we're bored, when we're thirsty, when we're around food (when aren't we?), when we're with company, or simply when the clock happens to tell us it's time for food. Most of us eat, too, just because it feels good. This is known as hedonic hunger, — Michael Mosley

Your soul is the root, its the root of everything. And when He tells you how to handle sex, He made it, its awesome, its beautiful, it has a purpose. And when He tells you how to handle it, there's a reason He says, This is connected to your soul and if you misuse it, your soul will wilt and will waste away. You can use it how you want to because you have the freedom to do that but in the end I'm telling you how to have the life to the fullest. — Lacey Mosley

That's how powerful you are, girl ... You pretty, but pretty alone is not what people see. You the kinda pretty, the kinda beauty, that's like a mirror. Men and women see themselves in you, only now they so beautiful that they can't bear to see you go. — Walter Mosley

It was a regular family scene. All we had to do was clean up a few murders and a matter of international dope smuggling, then we could move next door to Donna Reed. — Walter Mosley

Als it is hard for America to fight wars in the name of freedom, if those people themselves choose for nonfreedom. Can America and England save India from communism, if they vote communist themselves. — Oswald Mosley

I'm So Sick is about how the world can sometimes be a sick and messed up place and how that influences us and tells us how we should live or who we should be. People do things just 'cause everyone else does and then they wonder why they feel empty all the time. Someone who has a firm stance in what they know to be true will empower empty followers to discover who they are as individuals with purposes and this creates leaders with voices of their own. — Lacey Mosley