Bethanne Patrick > Quotes

“Reading has power. It can be education or entertainment, solace or spark, one time only or many times over.”
― Bethanne Patrick, The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People

“Heroes, you see—they’re exactly like us. History books tend to put people like Abraham Lincoln and Rosa Parks up on pedestals. They’re treated as gods. But know this: No one is born a hero. We’re all born the same way, and we have to achieve and work hard and struggle and fight. But if we teach our kids that the power of people like Lincoln and Parks is inside all of us, that each one of us has the potential to do something great, that could change the world. And it doesn’t have to be about something history making. It could just be about helping one person, being kind to one person. That’s the greatness that all of us can achieve.”
― Bethanne Patrick, The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People

“Reading a book, the right book—you recognize yourself.”
― Bethanne Patrick, The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People

“Malcolm’s book isn’t just about his personal history. It tells us a lot about American history. I’m amazed, really, that this book isn’t taught in every school to everyone, given its historical context and the importance of that context to us right now, today.”
― Bethanne Patrick, The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People

“I believe that that’s the purpose of fiction, that it allows you to address topics that are difficult by putting a human face on a tough topic.”
― Bethanne Patrick, The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People

“the tigers of wrath are better than the horses of instruction,”
― Bethanne Patrick, The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People

“The fact is, books get better with age. As you learn to become a better reader.”
― Bethanne Patrick, The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People

“Reading is important, but it’s also highly individual. You have to help your children find the books, the stories, that they connect to most strongly, and not just foist your favorites on them.”
― Bethanne Patrick, The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People

“Fiction gets people to think about things in a way that opens their minds. If there’s anything that can make you do that, whether it’s a book or a movie or a conversation or a personal experience, that’s what makes us grow as people. And for me that’s the whole reason that we have art in the world.”
― Bethanne Patrick, The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People

“How many young men and women are giving The Autobiography of Malcolm X to sisters and brothers now? I’d love to know. I live in a very white world. I’m an African American man. Which way do you go? Down the path of the savior, like King? Or the militant, like Malcolm?”
― Bethanne Patrick, The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People

“the book that has changed my life is Ulysses by James Joyce. That’s my working bible. It’s a compendium of every narrative technique ever.”
― Bethanne Patrick, The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People

“There were parts of his story I couldn’t connect to, and I wondered, when I read them, if I had to be antiwhite in order to fit in. But I kept reading, and the important thing is that by the end of the book, he changed. He had come around to understanding the power of working together.”
― Bethanne Patrick, The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People

“My life is not changed by a single book. My life is changed by books. On a daily basis.”
― Bethanne Patrick, The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People

“Everybody reads a different version of the same book, just as we bring ourselves to every book we read. I believe we don’t recognize enough the reasons that we love the books we love, what it is that they fulfill for us.”
― Bethanne Patrick, The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People

“It’s all about blackness. It’s all about defining yourself as a young black man, understanding your past, and discerning your personal mission”
― Bethanne Patrick, The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People

“in order to go to the really dark places that I wanted to, if I was going to go into the world that Twain entered, a world of poverty and ignorance and racism and violence, that I had better go armed with humor.”
― Bethanne Patrick, The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People