40 Kevin Young Quotes for You to Enjoy

Kevin Young

About Black Me Music Think You

Related authors: Bikram Choudhury Jocko Willink Louis Zamperini Mahavira Michael McDonald Thomas Frey Tony Evans

The hoax is the very absence of truth, which usually means art is absent, too - hoaxes regularly substitute claims of reality for imagination, facts for form, acting as if artifice is the antithesis of art. Kevin Young

Truth Art Reality Imagination Too Claims Absence Absent Facts Very Antithesis Artifice Hoax Substitute Form Which Means Acting Regularly

Harper Lee's novel 'To Kill a Mockingbird' became iconic almost immediately after appearing in 1960: best-seller status; the Pulitzer Prize the next year; a classic movie soon after, with Gregory Peck in an Academy Award-winning role. Kevin Young

While claiming advocacy, what hoaxers really exhibit is self-interest. Often, this is because there is only the self to support their false claims; any revelations merely provide further opportunities for details and forgery. Kevin Young

Rereading 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' I was struck by what I had forgotten of the book: in a manner of pages, we encounter shame, history, ruin, conflicting stories, and wounds badly healed; in short, the South. Kevin Young

History Book Ruin Wounds Struck Shame Had Badly Healed Encounter South Mockingbird Short Forgotten Stories Conflicting Manner Pages

Writers need their totems, their altars. Mine, I feel, share the same randomness and utility of those belonging to painters I know, who are relentlessly visual and even poetic. Kevin Young

Mine Randomness Those Relentlessly Visual Poetic Writers Share Feel Know Altar Same Who Painters Even Utility Belonging Need

I rather think that archives exist to keep things safe - but not secret. Kevin Young

Think Secret Archives Rather Safe Exist Keep Things

There's something about the kind of time travel that a poem can provide. It can take you to somewhere else - a culture far from you, a language far from you, but suddenly you're there. You're that person, seeing with that person's eyes. I think that's really tremendous. Even things like cinema or more traditional history can't quite do that. Kevin Young

Time History You Travel Eyes Culture Cinema Language Somewhere Think Else Tremendous Kind Seeing About Something Poem More Somewhere Else Take Like Traditional Provide Time Travel Person Quite Far Really Even Suddenly Things

I think poems return us to that place of mud and dirt and earth, sun and rain. Kevin Young

Rain Think Earth Sun Poems Dirt Return Place Us Mud

It's hard to describe one's own alchemy that makes one into a writer, but I definitely think American language is so interesting, and specifically Southern language and black Southern language; it's hard to separate Southern language from black language. Kevin Young

Language Black Own Think Definitely Writer Makes Southern American Interesting Separate Hard Describe Specifically Alchemy

The willed recovery of what's been lost - often forcibly, I suppose - is what keeps me going. It is this reason I found myself a poet and a collector and now a curator: to save what we didn't even know needed saving. Kevin Young

The first rule of influence is that there isn't any. The second rule of influence is that it is everywhere. Kevin Young

First Rule Everywhere Any Influence Second

For me Louisiana was mostly family when I was there. We hardly left; there was no need to... We hardly left the front porch. You would just sit, and folks would come by, and it was really old school in that way. Kevin Young

Music and the blues, they have taught me a lot. I think in this book, 'Book Of Hours,' there is this blues sensibility. There are moments of humor even in the sorrow, and I'm really interested in the way that the blues have that tragic-comic view of life - what Langston Hughes called 'laughing to keep from crying.' Kevin Young

We had moved cross-country from upstate New York to Kansas in the heat wave of 1980, with two cars, no air-conditioning, and a black dog. I can still see the infernal temperature of a hundred and nineteen degrees on a bank sign somewhere near Ohio. Kevin Young

Dog Car Black Somewhere Wave Hundred Nineteen Sign Degrees Temperature See Had New Still Infernal York Heat Bank Moved New York Ohio Upstate Upstate New York Kansas Near Two

I was a professor for 20 years, 12 of those at Emory University. Kevin Young

Those Years Professor University

I think Barnum is at the center of American culture. He's helping to invent what we now think of as pop culture. He invented pretty much our notions of the circus. Kevin Young

Culture Invent Think Our Circus Pretty Invented He American American Culture Center Much Pop Pop Culture Notions Helping Now

In the absence of an answer that is complicated and sort of maybe troubling, we sometimes settle for the easy answer. It's easier to believe that my discomfort comes from some fact that is being hidden from me. Kevin Young

Me Complicated Sometimes Believe Settle Easier Hidden Easy Some Absence Fact Troubling Sort Answer Discomfort Maybe Being

Certainly, there is, in our culture, this notion of, you know, you can become anything. You can change. Kevin Young

You Change Culture Become Our Know Anything Notion Certainly

I think that I try really hard to think about how we deceive ourselves, and we let ourselves be deceived. Kevin Young

Try Deceived Think Ourselves About How Deceive Really Hard

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