Harlem Quotes - Page 3

• Hurry, get on board, it's comin', listen to those rails a-thrumming all aboard. Get on the "A" train, soon you will be on Sugar Hill in Harlem.

  Duke Ellington

  Travel, Boards, Sugar

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• I am particularly conscious of my connection to the poets of the Harlem Renaissance because I, too, am a Black poet, born into, and shaped by, the very community in which those poets of the past produced so much of the work we associate with the Harlem Renaissance. We speak from the same place, both literally and metaphorically.

  Nikki Grimes

  Past, Community, Black

  Source: www.hbook.com

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• The world has white people and black people in it. Even in Harlem.

  Angela Bassett

  White, People, Black

  "Q&A: Angela Bassett Must Play Michelle Obama". Interview with Eric Spitznagel, www.esquire.com. March 22, 2013.

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• My peers at the time: you know, young black kids from off the streets of Harlem, having these conversations with me in my small, dirty little studio up in Harlem.

  Kehinde Wiley

  Dirty, Kids, Black

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

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• The police can go to downtown Harlem and pick up a kid with a joint in the streets. But they can't go into the elegant apartments and get a stockbroker who's sniffing cocaine.

  Noam Chomsky

  Kids, White Privilege, Racism

  "Noam Chomsky: Smoke and Mirrors, or Civil Liberties Under President Obama". Interview with Mike Stivers, www.truth-out.org. April 24, 2013.

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• I started reading. I read everything I could get my hands on...By the time I was thirteen I had read myself out of Harlem. I had read every book in two libraries and had a card for the Forty-Second Street branch.

  James A. Baldwin

  Book, Reading, Hands

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• We both grew up in the atmosphere of struggle, both Ossie and me, ... I come out of Harlem and Harlem comes out of me - wailing police sirens and street parties, rumors and landlords, that cultural, spiritual scene. And Ossie came up from the South, where struggle and dying were part of everyday life. That is who we are.

  Ruby Dee

  Spiritual, Party, Struggle

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• Old New York City is a friendly old town From Washington Heights to Harlem on down There's a-mighty many people all millin' all around They'll kick you when you're up and knock you when you're down It's hard times in the city Livin' down in New York town

  Bob Dylan

  New York, Hard Times, Cities

  Song: Hard Times in New York Town

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• I don't write police stories, per se, but I usually write about areas that are very panoramic, like Harlem, or the Lower East Side, or a small urban city like Jersey City.

  Richard Price

  Writing, Cities, Police

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• A long time ago, I took a walk down a street in Harlem in New York City. I came upon a man who asked me for a dollar. He had asked a few other people before me, but they only passed him by without glancing his way. I stopped and handed the man some money. As I began to turn away, he reached out and shook my hand. He looked me in the eyes and said, "I will bless you." Now, I'm not saying that was God Himself. But how do we know that it wasn't someone working for him, walking around in disguise, just to see what we would do?

  Muhammad Ali

  New York, Eye, Men

  Muhammad Ali, Hana Yasmeen Ali (2004). “The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life's Journey”, p.103, Simon and Schuster

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• The thing that surprised me the most is just how much money women that weren't rich were paying for their hair. When you're in a beauty parlor in Harlem next to abandoned buildings and somebody's paying five grand for a weave, that's a bit much. I think this is, in a weird way, part of the health care debate. It's like, hmm, there's people with $2000 weaves that could have bought health care with that weave money.

  Chris Rock

  Thinking, Hair, People

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• You can never tell what's in a woman's mind,
  And if she's from Harlem, there's no use o' tryin

  William Christopher Handy

  Mind, Use, Ifs

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• When you look at Harlem - and I lived there almost five years - most of the people who live in Harlem are transplants. They migrate to Harlem from another place. A lot of them are from the south, so they bring those southern influences with them.

  Mike Colter

  Years, People, Southern

  Source: www.harpersbazaar.com

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• The one thing you'll notice when you're walking through Harlem is every single passing car is playing different music and there's also music that's being played out of windows.

  Cheo Hodari Coker

  Car, Different, Being Played

  Source: deadline.com

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• In my neighborhood - West 121st Street in New York, "white Harlem" - there were only two drugs: smack and marijuana. By the time I was 13, some friends and I were using marijuana fairly regularly. The Reefer Madness myth was still very strong then, but I'd been into jazz and those lyrics included so many casual references to pot that it was completely demystified for me.

  George Carlin

  Strong, New York, Marijuana

  Source: reprints.longform.org

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• The best of humanity's recorded history is a creative balance between horrors endured and victories achieved, and so it was during the Harlem Renaissance.

  Aberjhani

  Creative, Humanity, Victory

  Aberjhani (2014). “Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry”, p.102, Lulu.com

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• You see a lot of Baptist churches in Harlem, you see a lot of the same kind of cuisine, the soul food - there's a lot of places that remind you of its southern roots.

  Mike Colter

  Roots, Southern, Soul

  Source: www.harpersbazaar.com

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• I'm not going to let Donald Trump take away from our community, something that Fannie Lou Hamer shed blood to give us. Something that Ella Jo Baker braved conditions in the South and sweatshops in Harlem to give us.

  Van Jones

  Blood, Giving, Community

  Source: www.ebony.com

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• I am grateful to have been loved and to be loved now and to be able to love, because that liberates. Love liberates. It doesn't just hold - that's ego. Love liberates. It doesn't bind. Love says, 'I love you. I love you if you're in China. I love you if you're across town. I love you if you're in Harlem. I love you. I would like to be near you. I'd like to have your arms around me. I'd like to hear your voice in my ear. But that's not possible now, so I love you. Go.'

  Maya Angelou

  Inspiring, Love You, Grateful

  "6 Maya Angelou Quotes About Love to Incorporate Into Your Wedding" by Kim Fusaro, www.glamour.com. May 29, 2014.

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• The other day I went to a school in Harlem to talk to some 7th graders [12-year-olds] and I said, ‘If I have to give you some advice, the most important thing is: the sooner you become your own best friend, the better your life will be,’ 

  Diane von Furstenberg

  School, Years, Giving

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• It was something that came sort of matter-of-factually. Because there - it's like really - real honest engagement with the people around me and just like really honestly being a little bit confused, quite frankly, about Harlem.

  Kehinde Wiley

  Confused, Real, People

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

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• In the Studio Museum in Harlem, when I was dealing with that community and dealing with my peers in the streets, it allowed for me to get outside of Yale, to get outside of art-speak, and to really think about art as a material practice that has very useful and pragmatic material precedent.

  Kehinde Wiley

  Art, Thinking, Yale

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

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• When I was a young kid, my pops introduced me to it. He took me to Harlem, 145th and Edgecombe, to watch the filming of Claudine with James Earl Jones and Diahann Carroll. That was my first taste of seeing a set and the cameras, and I was bit by the acting bug at a young age.

  Tracy Morgan

  Kids, Age, Acting

  "Tracy Morgan ‘Cop Out’ Interview with Kam Williams". newsblaze.com. February 22, 2010.

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• Marcus Samuelsson is a chef who inspires me everyday. He has such a deep understanding of flavors and techniques. His food is representative of the diverse world that we live in. What he has done in Harlem with Red Rooster is very special. Marcus is not just a chef, he's a food activist.

  Aaron Sanchez

  Deep Understanding, Inspire, Everyday

  "Aaron Sanchez, Chef Of The Week". Interview with Cindy Y. Rodriguez, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 18, 2011.

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• I think that once you're able to sort of get in line with who and how you relate to the world, you'll become closer to this index that I'm referring to. Because what you want is this card that relates to that book. What you want is this human that relates to this world, rather than having this art school society scattering that point of view somewhere in between. It becomes diffused. And that level of clarity, I think, was gained at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

  Kehinde Wiley

  Art, Book, School

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

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