Quotes from Walter Mosley

Many & most moments go by with us hardly aware of their passage. But love & hate & fear cause time to snag you, to drag you down like a spider's web holding fast to a doomed fly's wings. And when you're caught like that you're aware of every moment & movement & nuance.

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

That's how Ptolemy imagined the disposition of his memories, his thoughts: they were still his, still in the range of his thinking, but they were, many and most of them, locked on the other side a closed door that he's lost the key for. So his memory became like secrets held away from his own mind. But these secrets were noisy things; they babbled and muttered behind the door, and so if he listened closely he might catch a snatch of something he once knew well.

If it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.

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.

I've always loved science fiction. I think the smartest writers are science fiction writers dealing with major things." – Associated Press interview, 12-7-11

I'm just a survivor from the train wreck of the modern world.

Sometimes you might forget who you are and where, but that's okay because there's always somebody around that's happy to remind you.

Love makes you blind to your own survival. And if it doesn't then it's not love at all.

If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day... You don't go to a well once but daily. You don't skip a child's breakfast or forget to wake up in the morning.

I laugh, that there's a certain kind of cyclical nature to life and that I don't have to worry because whatever isn't there right now, it's coming back again.

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

Every day that we wake up is a good day. Every breath that we take is filled with hope for a better day. Every word that we speak is a chance to change what is bad into something good.

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.

He made me question what was, when for a whole lifetime up till that moment, I accepted the world's excuses.

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.

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

I've always loved science fiction. I think the smartest writers are science fiction writers dealing with major things.

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.

My father's life was so decimated by his earliest experiences. His mother died when he was 7 years old, which he always said was the worst experience in his life. When he was 8, his father disappeared and he was on his own from the age of 8.

My father always taught by telling stories about his experiences. His lessons were about morality and art and what insects and birds and human beings had in common. He told me what it meant to be a man and to be a Black man. He taught me about love and responsibility, about beauty, and how to make gumbo.

I would have been completely brainwashed by this lopsided and racist view of the world if it weren't for my father. He was a deep thinker and an irrepressible problem solver. He was a Black Socrates, asking why and then spoiling ready-made replies.

I'm almost completely without family and it's a very odd feeling in life. I have no children.

Comic books were telling me what life was about. This was how I kind of entered life, through fiction.