Alex Haley QUOTES

3 " Tying the little folks with the older folks is a great and powerful tool to preserve and to protect the family and the individual. "

― Alex Haley

4 " Find the good, and praise it. "

― Alex Haley

5 " Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help. "

― Alex Haley

6 " Carrying little Kunta in his strong arms, he walked to the edge of the village, lifted his baby up with his face to the heavens, and said softly, “Fend kiling dorong leh warrata ka iteh tee.” (Behold—the only thing greater than yourself.) "

― Alex Haley , Roots: The Saga of an American Family

7 " I later heard somewhere, or read, that Malcolm X telephoned an apology to the reporter. But this was the kind of evidence which caused many close observers of the Malcolm X phenomenon to declare in absolute seriousness that he was the only Negro in America who could either start a race riot-or stop one. When I once quoted this to him, tacitly inviting his comment, he told me tartly, "I don't know if I could start one. I don't know if I'd want to stop one. "

― Alex Haley , The Autobiography of Malcolm X

8 " He said he wanted to present an alternative; that it might be easier for whites to accept Martin’s proposals after hearing him (Malcolm X). "

― Alex Haley

9 " Mingo went toward his cabin, but turning at the door, he looked back at George. “Hear me, boy! You thinks you’s sump’n special wid massa, but nothin’ don’t make no difference to mad, scared white folks! Don’t you be no fool an’ slip off nowhere till this blow over, you hear me? I mean don’t! "

― Alex Haley , Roots: The Saga of an American Family

10 " All of that Hollywood stuff! Like these women wanting men to pick them up and carry them across thresholds and some of them weigh more than you do. I don't know how many marriage breakups are caused by these movie and television addicted women expecting some bouquets and kissing and hugging and being swept out like Cinderella for dinner and dancing then getting mad when a poor, scraggly husband comes in tired and sweaty from working like a dog all day, looking for some food. ~Malcolm X "

― Alex Haley , The Autobiography of Malcolm X

11 " And there was a lot of exclaiming about some Massa Patrick Henry having cried out, 'Give me liberty or give me death!' Kunta liked that, but he couldn't understand how somebody white could say it; white folks looked pretty free to him. "

― Alex Haley , Roots: The Saga of an American Family

12 " Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you. "

― Alex Haley

13 " In all of us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage- to know who we are and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness. "

― Alex Haley

14 " Racism is taught in our society... it is not automatic.
It is learned behavior toward persons with
dissimilar physical characteristics. "

― Alex Haley

15 " Find the Good and Praise it" by Alex Haley "

― Alex Haley

16 " The first time he had taken the massa to one of these "high-falutin' to-dos," as Bell called them, Kunta had been all but overwhelmed by conflicting emotions: awe, indignation, envy, contempt, fascination, revulsion—but most of all a deep loneliness and melancholy from which it took him almost a week to recover. He couldn't believe that such incredible wealth actually existed, that people really lived that way. It took him a long time, and a great many more parties, to realize that they didn't live that way, that it was all strangely unreal, a kind of beautiful dream the white folks were having, a lie they were telling themselves: that goodness can come from badness, that it's possible to be civilized with one another without treating as human beings those whose blood, sweat, and mother's milk made possible the life of privilege they led. "

― Alex Haley , Roots: The Saga of an American Family

17 " Is this how you repay my goodness--with badness?” cried the boy. “Of course,” said the crocodile out of the corner of his mouth. “That is the way of the world. "

― Alex Haley , Roots: The Saga of an American Family

18 " I suppose that it was inevitable that my word-base broadened. I could now for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying. Anyone who has read a great deal can imagine the new world that opened. Let me tell you something: from then until I left that prison, in every free moment I had, if I was not reading in the library, I was reading in my bunk. You couldn’t have gotten me out of my books with a wedge...Months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life. "

― Alex Haley , The Autobiography of Malcolm X

19 " He meant you no harm?" said Omoro.
"He acted very friendly," said the old man, "but the cat always eats the mouse it plats with. "

― Alex Haley , Roots: The Saga of an American Family

20 " Any person who claims to have deep feeling for other human beings should think a long, long time before he votes to have other men kept behind bars--caged. I am not saying there shouldn't be prisons, but there shouldn't be bars. Behind bars, a man never reforms. He will never forget. He will never get completely over the memory of the bars. "

― Alex Haley , The Autobiography of Malcolm X

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