Possibility is neither forever nor instant. It is not easy to sustain belief in its efficacy. We can sometimes work long and hard to establish one beachhead of real resistance to the deaths we are expected to live, only to have that beachhead assaulted or threatened by those canards we have been socialized to fear, or by the withdrawal of those approvals that we have been warned to seek for safety.
~ Audre Lorde
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We are all more blind to what we have than to what we have not.
~ Audre Lorde
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When I speak of the erotic, then I speak of it as an assertion of the life force of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives.
~ Audre Lorde
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When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.
~ Audre Lorde
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We are all more blind to what we have than to what we have not.
~ Audre Lorde
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“The Harlem of my books was never meant to be real. I never called it real; I just wanted to take it away from the white man if only in my books.”
~ Chester Himes
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On the family tree of African American crime fiction, there is a direct genealogical link from Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones to Easy Rawlins and John Shaft, to Aaron Gunner, to Blanche White, to Marti MacAlister, to Larry Cole, to Cass Raines and Dayna Anderson.
~ S.A. Cosby via The New York Times
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I had never encountered anything like the world or the words of Chester Himes. But I knew I wanted more. The next book I devoured was “Blind Man With a Pistol,” a deeply twisted and morally ambiguous novel about the senseless nature of violence. A work that is both terrifying and philosophical, it was a watershed moment for this young wannabe writer that also just happens to have one of the most fearless endings in crime fiction history.
~ S.A. Cosby via The New York Times
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If Raymond Chandler is considered the poet of crime fiction and Samuel Dashiell Hammett its great journalist, then Chester Himes is the songwriter of the downtrodden. His stories sing with a fire and light that comes from a simmering sense of loss. A loss of respect, of humanity, of honor.
~ S.A. Cosby via The New York Times
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Black cops and con men, Black madams and Black ministers — this unapologetic zenith of Black identity was a revelation in every sense of the word. It felt both spiritual and inspirational. In short, it changed my life. Even though I was a poor boy from rural Virginia who had never stepped foot in Harlem, Chester Himes spoke to me with the kind of wild and powerful clarion call that can only be heard when an elder speaks.
~ S.A. Cosby via The New York Times
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