Gloria Naylor Quotes

Not only is your story worth telling, but it can be told in words so painstakingly eloquent that it becomes a song.

I don't believe that life is supposed to make you feel good, or to make you feel miserable either. Life is just supposed to make you feel.

Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes.

The music in his laughter had a way of rounding off the missing notes in her soul.

A loud voice is not always angry; a soft voice not always to be dismissed; and a well-placed silence can be the indisputable last word.

Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go... And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.

The intelligence community, for the most part, has no accountability at all; to the Congress, to us the American people, and so they feel that they above the law.

One should be able to return to the first sentence of a novel and find the resonances of the entire work.

a star dies in heaven every time you snatch away someone's dream.

Words themselves are innocuous; it is the consensus that gives them true power.

You can't teach talent. You can't put in what God left out - but you can teach confidence.

I don't want to write without a sense of drama, without passion, or without both eyes open to the world around me.

We get so caught up in what a man isn't. It's what he is that counts.

That's one of the privileges of old age - you can give plenty of advice 'cause most folks think that's all you got left anyway.

The last time you're doing something - knowing you're doing it for the last - makes it even more alive than the first.

Spoiled. That's all it's about - can't live without this, can't live without that. You can live without anything you weren't born with, and you can make it through on even half of that.

Life is accepting what is and working from that.

Contempt mates well with pity.

Once I unlocked the mystery of the alphabet that led to words, a multitude of words connecting me to the world, there was no stopping me.

It's as if I've arrived in a place where it's all spirit and no body -- an overwhelming sense of calm . . . I actually began to feel blessed.

Self-consciousness is really a form of egotism.

black isn't beautiful and it isn't ugly - black is! It's not kinky hair and it's not straight hair - it just is.

There's something hypocritical about a city that keeps half of its population underground half of the time; you can start believing that there's much more space than there really is-to live, to work.

Old as he was, he still missed his daddy sometimes.

Why do I write? The truth, the unvarnished truth, is that I haven't a clue.

Time is a funny thing. I was always puzzled with the way a single day could stretch itself out to the point of eternity in your mind, all while years melted down into the fraction of a second.

The right woman is the one you can live with, not the one in your head.

A myth is more powerful - and more lasting - than reality.

Old as she was she still missed her daddy sometimes.

You don't repay kindness with needless cruelty.

Now that she had actually seen and accepted reality, and reality brought such a healing calm.

But I don't believe that life is supposed to make you feel good, or to make you feel miserable either. Life is just supposed to make you feel.