Alex Haley > Quotes

“Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you.”
― Alex Haley

“The main thing you got to remember is that everything in the world is a hustle.”
― Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“In all of us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage- to know who we are and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness. ”
― Alex Haley

“In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.”
― Alex Haley

“Racism is taught in our society... it is not automatic.
It is learned behavior toward persons with
dissimilar physical characteristics.”
― Alex Haley

“I certainly wasn't seeking any degree, the way a college confers a status symbol upon its students. My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America. Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me, asking questions. One was, "What's your alma mater?" I told him, "Books.”
― Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“The first time he had taken the massa to one of these "high-falutin' to-dos," as Bell called them, Kunta had been all but overwhelmed by conflicting emotions: awe, indignation, envy, contempt, fascination, revulsion—but most of all a deep loneliness and melancholy from which it took him almost a week to recover. He couldn't believe that such incredible wealth actually existed, that people really lived that way. It took him a long time, and a great many more parties, to realize that they didn't live that way, that it was all strangely unreal, a kind of beautiful dream the white folks were having, a lie they were telling themselves: that goodness can come from badness, that it's possible to be civilized with one another without treating as human beings those whose blood, sweat, and mother's milk made possible the life of privilege they led.”
― Alex Haley, Roots: The Saga of an American Family

“Find the Good and Praise it" by Alex Haley”
― Alex Hailey

“I suppose that it was inevitable that my word-base broadened. I could now for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying. Anyone who has read a great deal can imagine the new world that opened. Let me tell you something: from then until I left that prison, in every free moment I had, if I was not reading in the library, I was reading in my bunk. You couldn’t have gotten me out of my books with a wedge...Months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life.”
― Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“Is this how you repay my goodness--with badness?” cried the boy. “Of course,” said the crocodile out of the corner of his mouth. “That is the way of the world.”
― Alex Haley, Roots: The Saga of an American Family

“Any person who claims to have deep feeling for other human beings should think a long, long time before he votes to have other men kept behind bars--caged. I am not saying there shouldn't be prisons, but there shouldn't be bars. Behind bars, a man never reforms. He will never forget. He will never get completely over the memory of the bars.”
― Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“Find the good, and praise it.”
― Alex Haley

“He meant you no harm?" said Omoro.
"He acted very friendly," said the old man, "but the cat always eats the mouse it plats with.”
― Alex Haley, Roots: The Saga of an American Family

“Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help.”
― Alex Haley

“In my writing, as much as I could, I tried to find the good, and praise it.”
― Alex Haley

“It is the way of the world that goodness is often repaid by badness.”
― Alex Haley

“Through this flesh, which is us, we are you, and you are us!”
― Alex Haley, Roots: The Saga of an American Family

“I read aimlessly, until I learned to read selectively, with a purpose. - Malcom X”
― Alex Haley , The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“Carrying little Kunta in his strong arms, he walked to the edge of the village, lifted his baby up with his face to the heavens, and said softly, “Fend kiling dorong leh warrata ka iteh tee.” (Behold—the only thing greater than yourself.)”
― Alex Haley, Roots: The Saga of an American Family

“Kerabe?”
― Alex Haley, Roots: The Saga of an American Family

“I later heard somewhere, or read, that Malcolm X telephoned an apology to the reporter. But this was the kind of evidence which caused many close observers of the Malcolm X phenomenon to declare in absolute seriousness that he was the only Negro in America who could either start a race riot-or stop one. When I once quoted this to him, tacitly inviting his comment, he told me tartly, "I don't know if I could start one. I don't know if I'd want to stop one.”
― Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“I was weeping for all of history's incredible atrocities against fellowmen, which seems to be mankind's greatest flaw...”
― Alex Haley, Roots: The Saga of an American Family

“And there was a lot of exclaiming about some Massa Patrick Henry having cried out, 'Give me liberty or give me death!' Kunta liked that, but he couldn't understand how somebody white could say it; white folks looked pretty free to him.”
― Alex Haley, Roots: The Saga of an American Family

“One call that I never will forget came at close to four A.M., waking me; he must have just gotten up in Los Angeles. His voice said, "Alex Haley?" I said, sleepily, "Yes? Oh, hey, Malcolm!" His voice said, "I trust you seventy percent" -- and then he hung up. I lay a short time thinking about him and I went back to sleep feeling warmed by that call, as I still am warmed to remember it. Neither of us ever mentioned it."

The Autobiography of Malcolm X”
― Alex Haley Malcolm X

“Playboy: Why are you smiling? Thompson: Am I smiling? Yeah, I guess I am…well, it’s fun to lose it sometimes.”
― Alex Haley, Hunter S. Thompson: The Playboy Interview (Singles Classic)

“he found himself pondering what it must be like not to belong to someone. What would it feel like to be “free”? It must not be all that good or Massa Lea, like most whites, wouldn’t hate free blacks so much. But then he remembered what a free black woman who had sold him some white lightning in Greensboro had told him once. “Every one us free show y’all plantation niggers livin’ proof dat jes’ bein’ a nigger don’ mean you have to be no slave. Yo’ massa don’ never want you thinkin’ nothin’ ’bout dat.” During”
― Alex Haley, Roots: The Saga of an American Family

“So Dad has joined the others up there. I feel that they do watch and guide, and I also feel that they join me in the hope that this story of our people can help alleviate the legacies of the fact that preponderantly the histories have been written by the winners.”
― Alex Haley, Roots: The Saga of an American Family

“It was the first time the name had ever been spoken as this child's name, for Omoro's people felt that each human being should be the first to know who he was.”
― Alex Haley

“And yet had not a pagan the right to be a pagan?”
― Alex Haley, Roots: The Saga of an American Family

“Surrounded by them, she would growl, “Let me tell a story . . . ” “Please!” the children would chorus, wriggling in anticipation. And she would begin in the way that all Mandinka storytellers began: “At this certain time, in this certain village, lived this certain person.” It was a small boy, she said, of about their rains, who walked to the riverbank one day and found a crocodile trapped in a net. “Help me!” the crocodile cried out. “You’ll kill me!” cried the boy. “No! Come nearer!” said the crocodile. So the boy went up to the crocodile—and instantly was seized by the teeth in that long mouth. “Is this how you repay my goodness—with badness?” cried the boy. “Of course,” said the crocodile out of the corner of his mouth. “That is the way of the world.” The boy refused to believe that, so the crocodile agreed not to swallow him without getting an opinion from the first three witnesses to pass by. First was an old donkey. When the boy asked his opinion, the donkey said, “Now that I’m old and can no longer work, my master has driven me out for the leopards to get me!” “See?” said the crocodile. Next to pass by was an old horse, who had the same opinion. “See?” said the crocodile. Then along came a plump rabbit who said, “Well, I can’t give a good opinion without seeing this matter as it happened from the beginning.” Grumbling, the crocodile opened his mouth to tell him—and the boy jumped out to safety on the riverbank. “Do you like crocodile meat?” asked the rabbit. The boy said yes. “And do your parents?” He said yes again. “Then here is a crocodile ready for the pot.” The boy ran off and returned with the men of the village, who helped him to kill the crocodile. But they brought with them a wuolo dog, which chased and caught and killed the rabbit, too. “So the crocodile was right,” said Nyo Boto. “It is the way of the world that goodness is often repaid with badness. This is what I have told you as a story.” “May you be blessed, have strength and prosper!” said the children gratefully.”
― Alex Haley, Roots: The Saga of an American Family