FastSaying

I was peace pipes and treaties. My style was to talk and duck. It was an animal tactic, playing dead in hopes that the predators would move to an actual fight.


Ta-Nehisi Coates

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

The passenger liner Ossifar Distana was one of the most luxurious of its kind in space anywhere. It ...
CHRISTINA ENGELA God decided that this time in history was perfect for you to glorify Him and make an eternal differe...
CRAIG GROESCHEL I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES The rules only applied to
people who couldn’t afford different rules.
CAMERON STRACHER This is actually something no one knows, but my mom was really the one who created the entire style ...
ROBYN LIVELY Like a cornered animal, which turns instinctively to confront pursuing predators, Pol Pot viewed pol...
PHILIP SHORT The environment I was raised in, you had to, to survive.
MARK WAHLBERG Seeing eye to an eye is a must, especially when there lies a case, or an intent, to meet; even by in...
PRIYAVRAT THAREJA I found an inner strength to fight for myself. It was clear that nobody else would.
TEHMINA DURRANI But pain may be a gift to us. Remember, after all, that pain is one of the ways we register in memor...
SUE MILLER What I wrote... wasn't crazy... or a bullshit... or nonsense... it was what I saw!
DEYTH BANGER I adapted an antiquated style and modernized it to something that was efficient. I didn't know anyon...
DICK FOSBURY It was an actual piece of luggage that was checked in. The package was deemed non-suspicious.
JOE TAPLIN 'Animal Ark', was when I was fourteen years old, and it was an ITV children's program, a...
EDDIE REDMAYNE I was born in Fayette County, over in Lexington, Kentucky, but I was raised most of my life in Paint...
CHRIS STAPLETON It has a clean and simple style to it; very simple. It has a nice, graceful shape. I was told it cap...
BRUCE DIVACCARO I adapted an antiquated style and modernized it to something that was efficient. I didn't know a...
DICK FOSBURY During the day I would move my body to the rhythm that only I could hear. I would try and connect wi...
THE HIPPIE You don't think I would do that on purpose, Ma? It was an accident. I didn't mean to do it, Ma. She ...
JOSEPH P. SMITH I thought it was really cool because you got to do all these probe things and it was kind of like an...
AARON EDWARDS I was always a drama queen. I remember playing in the kitchen, trying to get my mom to think I was d...
AMY LEE I developed an optical lure that imitates certain types of bioluminescent displays that I think migh...
EDITH WIDDER I was really shy when I was younger, so my mom got me into an acting class to see if I would open my...
MOISES ARIAS If I had to control what I was speaking, it would be a chore. Right now I just feel I've got my ...
TARSEM SINGH When I put down Lance Armstrong’s book, I understood something profoundly. Edie, if you can move, ...
EDIE LITTLEFIELD SUNDBY The fellows that I played with encouraged me to bunt and beat the ball out. I was anxious to make go...
ZACK WHEAT I probably listen to Burn more than any of them, because it was so new me, so novel. To see my name ...
DAVID COVERDALE I was so much more powerful than anyone knew. I was an animal learning to fight back, instinctively,...
ASPEN MATIS That was an accident. I didn't know where to go so I closed my eyes and made a move.
ALEX KOVALEV I was told by my grandmother?s cousin who was an actress in the ?20s ? she was 86 and I was 4 at the...
XENIA SEEBERG Before we had airplanes and astronauts, we really thought that there was an actual place beyond the ...
BARBARA WALTERS I was born in Bournemouth, England, in 1943.
J. PHILIPPE RUSHTON I was born in a blender.
LORNA LUFT I was born 'neath a clouded star.
JULIA WARD HOWE I wasn't born a redhead, but I was born to be a redhead.
GEORGETTE MOSBACHER I was born to be funny.
BUDDY HACKETT I was born in Palo Alto, California in 1961.
ERIC ALLIN CORNELL Before I was going to be an actress, I was going to be a veterinarian! I thought I was one as a chil...
ANNALYNNE MCCORD It was Peace. Peace is when you would shake the hands of the people around you. And you knew peace w...
DANE COOK When I put down Lance Armstrong’s book, I understood something profoundly. Edie, if you can move, ...
EDIE LITTLEFIELD SUNDBY I was always a drama queen. I remember playing in the kitchen, trying to get my mom to think I was d...
AMY LEE I think by eighth grade I knew I wanted to be an actor. I'd done church plays and stuff, but my ...
AARON PAUL I was able to confess the Apostles' Creed, but only with deep ambiguity. But I stumbled over "he aro...
THOMAS C. ODEN That playing time was huge. I got an opportunity to showcase my talent, and I showed what I can do w...
JONATHAN WELLS I would say the race was hard, but it was easier than my qualifying lap. But definitely, once I got ...
TONY KANAAN I died a mineral, and became a plant. I died a plant and rose an animal. I died an animal and I was ...
RUMI I died a mineral, and became a plant. I died a plant and rose an animal. I died an animal and I was ...
JALAL AD-DIN RUMI I wanted to be an actress. I think it had a lot to do with being a kid and watching how every time m...
ELEANOR MONDALE I would say that I was absolutely convinced of the possibility of our making an uranium engine, but ...
WERNER HEISENBERG There was little in my early life to indicate that an interest in biology would become the passion o...
ERIC KANDEL For the moment, the snow is quite wet and soft. If it was hard or icy, it would be a perfect downhil...
HERMANN MAIER My grandfather was actually a union organizer at Walt Disney. He was an animator. He used to draw Do...
NAOMI KLEIN Elric knew that everything that existed had its opposite. In danger he might find peace. And yet, of...
MICHAEL MOORCOCK Early in my school career, I turned out to be an incorrigible disciplinary problem. I could understa...
ISAAC ASIMOV When I was little I used to dance and model and that was fun. But I was always the person that was g...
ASHLEY BENSON And the day came out... the mask was removed... and who was behind it?
...
No Face... a pe...
DEYTH BANGER I don't eat any flesh of an animal. And I was raised that way. I've never had the meat of any animal...
CARYN PIERCE So, my tactic with conservation of apex predators is to get people excited and take them to where th...
STEVE IRWIN Because he was not up for an actual labor position, it was surprising to see them make an issue of t...
GEORGE WAKSMUNSKI You know, he would go and look at different funny books because he wanted his character to be differ...
BUBBA SMITH For a while, I was working on transcribing rap lyrics and then converting them into rhythmic pattern...
JASON MORAN From spending ten years in hell and coming to this regime of kindness was a shock. It was so much of...
STEPHEN RICHARDS He was so benevolent, so merciful a man that he would have held an umbrella over a duck in a shower ...
DOUGLAS JERROLD Was it animal pee or human pee? Someone asked.
How would I know? What, am I an expert in the st...
JOHN GREEN Instead, every precaution was taken not to violate his rights. Remember, many administrators have no...
JAMES C. DOBSON Men, when they fight in movies, it's a very different style. Harrison Ford was so cool when he h...
LUCY LIU I think my style is kind of a cross between a skater hippie and an R&B star. If there were somet...
JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE My dad was an actor and a writer; my mum was a drama teacher. My grandma was an actress. My aunt is ...
CHARLIE ROWE Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other,...
IMMANUEL KANT And along with indifference to space, there was an even more complete indifference to time. "There s...
ALDOUS HUXLEY It was kind of an eerie feeling in the building when he went down because I was fighting then and no...
AARON DOWNEY He was playing above the crease. I faked a shot to freeze him and then made my move.
BRIAN GIONTA Why did you marry Dad, Mom?"
My mother sniffled through her nose, looked at me, then smiled. <...
MARGARET MCMULLAN If I was to meet him, I would talk business first, get some business advice and then talk some music...
ALEX REZAEV I wondered vaguely if this was when it would end, whether I would pull up tonight's darkness like a ...
WILLIAM MANCHESTER I was angry about the fact that my father would beat my mother on a daily basis, that my mother woul...
RICK JAMES Madonna did amazing songs. She had an amazing sense of style, without a stylist. And she was flawed,...
M.I.A. Oh yeah, that was on my mind. I was thinking how it would have been if I were playing for the Red So...
BERNIE WILLIAMS Growing up in a very big family, working together and playing together, that is something that has b...
MARGHERITA MISSONI Under a pound was an extreme level and my guess it that they'll continue to move up for the next mon...
JASON JAMES Most people would say safety was my best position. To me, the biggest challenge and most gratifying ...
RONNIE LOTT I mean, I grew up with pretty down-to-earth, atheist parents, but I was born a Pisces.
MELISSA AUF DER MAUR My mother encouraged me to be artistic. It was written in a contract at an early age that I would be...
KURT COBAIN It's an exciting new beginning. To leave Perth was a very difficult decision, it was the best move f...
MATT BURSTON In retrospect, I would have to recommend against epiphanies. They are difficult on an emotional leve...
PETER DAVID I didn't want to talk about being in an internment camp, ... They would ask me, where was I? I would...
GEORGE TAKEI I was not a pet, not a doll, not an animal.
I was a survivor, and I was strong.
I would no...
SARAH J. MAAS A part of me feels like I was an animal in my past life that wasn't treated very nicely.
LEONA LEWIS The whole thing fell in like an accordion, ... Anybody who was out in that room would have been dead...
CHARLES SPENCER At first, I didn't know what an actor was. I thought it was an acrobat. I saw acrobats at the ci...
FINN JONES To be honest, I just went brain dead. I was not asked to talk about projects, and I was not prepared...
GARY VEST I would do musicals in high school where there was dancing, and I would sing my verse, and then they...
BETTY GILPIN 'Free Agents' was an awesome experience. I never play the glam girl in anything, so that was...
KATHRYN HAHN It was an important time of the game and to be contributing in that way it would have made me feel g...
ANDREW SYMONDS My father was an aspiring country singer and songwriter. He just didn't get that off that ground...
RONNIE DUNN The end of my playing career was May 28, 2017. That, for me, was an historic day. I'll carry it ...
FRANCESCO TOTTI I was born in August, no July, 1908.
SATCHEL PAIGE I was born in the technology era.
MALUMA I was born with an evil face.
BARRY SLOANE I was raised Jewish and bar mitzvahed.
DAN FUTTERMAN

More Ta-Nehisi Coates

I think riots happen when communities are under pressure for long periods of time. That's not a ...
TA-NEHISI COATES I love living around black people. Home is home. We suffer under racism and the physical deprivation...
TA-NEHISI COATES It meant something to see people who looked like me in comic books. It was this beautiful place that...
TA-NEHISI COATES We are all losers in comparison to Malala Yousafzai. But we are not all geniuses. Like me.
TA-NEHISI COATES We look at young black kids with a scowl on their face, walking a certain way down the block with th...
TA-NEHISI COATES I feel like my job is to look at the world and to report what I see, to write what I see as honestly...
TA-NEHISI COATES My father was so very afraid. I felt it in the sting of his black leather belt, which he applied wit...
TA-NEHISI COATES I haven't checked, but I highly suspect that chickens evolved from an egg-laying ancestor, which...
TA-NEHISI COATES I love America the way I love my family - I was born into it. And there's no escape out of it.
TA-NEHISI COATES 'White America' is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and contro...
TA-NEHISI COATES One of the things we tell ourselves as African-Americans is if we work hard, play by the rules, we d...
TA-NEHISI COATES We want to believe racism is an artifact of the past, and if you have a political massacre, that con...
TA-NEHISI COATES My belief is in the chaos of the world and that you have to find your peace within the chaos and tha...
TA-NEHISI COATES The country in which reparations actually happen is a very different one than the one we live in.
TA-NEHISI COATES The soul is part of the body. The mind is part of the body. When folks do physical violence to black...
TA-NEHISI COATES When people think about reparations, they immediately think about people who've been dead for 10...
TA-NEHISI COATES When you write, you're inside the project. You can't really think about the reception. It ha...
TA-NEHISI COATES I think a lot about the private emotions of black people - what we feel and yet is rarely publicly e...
TA-NEHISI COATES The plunder of black communities is not a bump along the road, but it is, in fact, the road itself t...
TA-NEHISI COATES Racism is a physical experience.
TA-NEHISI COATES There are plenty of African-Americans in this country - and I would say this goes right up to the Wh...
TA-NEHISI COATES I feel some need to represent where I'm from. But ultimately, I think my only real responsibilit...
TA-NEHISI COATES There are African-American families around this country - a large, large number of African-American ...
TA-NEHISI COATES African Americans are one of the oldest ethnic groups in this country. We been here since the beginn...
TA-NEHISI COATES We have this long history of racism in this country, and as it happens, the criminal justice system ...
TA-NEHISI COATES The relationship between violence and nonviolence in this country is interesting. The fact of the ma...
TA-NEHISI COATES Forgiveness is a big part of - especially post-civil rights movement - is a big part of African-Amer...
TA-NEHISI COATES The lives of African-Americans in this country are characterized by violence for most of our history...
TA-NEHISI COATES I enjoy the challenge of trying to say things beautifully. The message is secondary in that sense. O...
TA-NEHISI COATES I wasn't the biggest Captain America fan, but increasingly, I see him as a great character. Wint...
TA-NEHISI COATES I just want to be really clear about this: Anyone who has read Colin Powell's biography - there&...
TA-NEHISI COATES When I see the Confederate flag, I see the attempt to raise an empire in slavery. It really, really ...
TA-NEHISI COATES I was born in West Baltimore, lived in a situation in which violence was everywhere.
TA-NEHISI COATES It's hard for me to view Baltimore outside the context of what Baltimore has always been in my m...
TA-NEHISI COATES You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to constrict yourse...
TA-NEHISI COATES There was no United States before slavery. I am sure somebody can make some sort of argument about m...
TA-NEHISI COATES Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader ...
TA-NEHISI COATES I'm the descendant of enslaved black people in this country. You could've been born in 1820 ...
TA-NEHISI COATES It was mostly through pop culture, through hip-hop, through Dungeons & Dragons and comic books t...
TA-NEHISI COATES I was about 13 or 14 when I heard Malcolm X's speech 'Message to the Grass Roots.'
TA-NEHISI COATES As an African-American, we stand on the shoulders of people who fought despite not seeing victories ...
TA-NEHISI COATES I constantly write about my safety walking to and from school, and then I would come home at night, ...
TA-NEHISI COATES You can't tolerate anybody attempting to threaten or intimidate your body. You must respond with...
TA-NEHISI COATES The popular mocking of reparations as a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intelle...
TA-NEHISI COATES Won't reparations divide us? Not any more than we are already divided. The wealth gap merely puts a ...
TA-NEHISI COATES [whiteness] has no real meaning divorced from the machinery of criminal power. The new people were s...
TA-NEHISI COATES When people who are not black are interested in what I do, frankly, I'm always surprised. I don&...
TA-NEHISI COATES My dad always associated information with liberation. He was very much in that Malcolm X tradition.
TA-NEHISI COATES The black people in these films seemed to love the worst things in life—love the dogs that rent th...
TA-NEHISI COATES I remembered that once, as a child, I was filled with wonder, that I had marveled at tri-folded scie...
TA-NEHISI COATES You may have heard the talk of diversity, sensitivity training, and body cameras. These are all fine...
TA-NEHISI COATES My mother and father were always pushing me away from secondhand answers—even the answers they the...
TA-NEHISI COATES You must resist the common urge toward the comforting narrative of divine law, toward fairy tales th...
TA-NEHISI COATES I think at places like 'Slate' or the magazine where I work, there was a really poor record ...
TA-NEHISI COATES I do understand how hate eats at the soul and how to purge yourself of hate.
TA-NEHISI COATES You can oppose reparations all you want, but you got to know the facts. You really, really do.
TA-NEHISI COATES I would not have you descend into your own dream. I would have you be a conscious citizen of this te...
TA-NEHISI COATES The essential relationship across American history between black people and white people is one of e...
TA-NEHISI COATES The American real-estate industry believed segregation to be a moral principle. As late as 1950, the...
TA-NEHISI COATES [Clyde Ross] was stationed in California. He found that he could go into stores without being bother...
TA-NEHISI COATES From the 1930s through the 1960s, black people across the country were largely cut out of the legiti...
TA-NEHISI COATES In the 1920s, Jim Crow Mississippi was, in all facets of society, a kleptocracy.
TA-NEHISI COATES You do not give your precious body to the billy clubs of Birmingham sheriffs, nor to the insidious a...
TA-NEHISI COATES I would say as a journalist, I would envision travelling to other countries that have had to reckon ...
TA-NEHISI COATES When President Roosevelt signed Social Security into law in 1935, 65 percent of African Americans na...
TA-NEHISI COATES Our art is made in cities like New York by people who are running from other places. They feel thems...
TA-NEHISI COATES I do not believe we can stop them, Samori, because they must ultimately stop themselves. And still I...
TA-NEHISI COATES Dylan's voice was awful, an aged quaver that sounded nothing like the deep-throated or silky R&B...
TA-NEHISI COATES In 2001, the Associated Press published a three-part investigation into the theft of black-owned lan...
TA-NEHISI COATES To be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world, before al...
TA-NEHISI COATES Superheroes are best imagined in comic books. The union between the written word, the image, and the...
TA-NEHISI COATES The spirit and soul are the body and brain, which are destructible-that is precisely why they are so...
TA-NEHISI COATES I know now that all people hunger for a noble, unsullied past, that as sure as the black nationalist...
TA-NEHISI COATES In Chicago and across the country, whites looking to achieve the American dream could rely on a legi...
TA-NEHISI COATES But race is the child of racism, not the father. And the process of naming “the people” has neve...
TA-NEHISI COATES The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free.
TA-NEHISI COATES I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interest...
TA-NEHISI COATES One Saturday morning last May, I joined the presidential motorcade as it slipped out of the southern...
TA-NEHISI COATES You have been cast into a race in which the wind is always at your face and the hounds are always at...
TA-NEHISI COATES I think it was like playing somebody in tennis who's a little better than you. You get better just b...
AL COATES There are things that went wrong in the front office and the chain of command. But those are things ...
AL COATES Particularly in the first period, he made two or three key saves that if one or two go in, maybe cha...
AL COATES Hopefully we can get through this quickly and get back to full strength.
AL COATES For the most part, the game had been decided by then. We had a really solid game plan and the team e...
AL COATES I'm so not scary. I'm a pussycat. But what are you going to do, right? I mean, these cheekbo...
KIM COATES It was a lot more fun working with film.
ANNE COATES I like meeting the people. I'm a theatre person.
ANNE COATES Take jobs where you can.
ANNE COATES Preview days are the worst days of your life.
ANNE COATES Stephen shoots just enough coverage.
ANNE COATES Otherwise the investment which has gone in has been a waste up until now.
ANDREW COATES In general, one has to ask why complete the International Space Station anyway. One worries about pu...
ANDREW COATES The knock-on effects to the International Space Station are quite dramatic ... (long delays) could p...
ANDREW COATES As water comes off the rings, it is split by sunlight; the resulting hydrogen and atomic oxygen are ...
ANDREW COATES Venus provides an extreme test for the atmospheric physics models that we have for Earth.
ANDREW COATES Venus was born with the same sorts of constituents as Earth, which means there was some water in the...
ANDREW COATES There never was a chip, it is said, that Bill Gates couldn't slow down with a new batch of features.
JAMES COATES I know people have tattooed my 'Sons of Anarchy' photos, they've painted them, on their ...
KIM COATES What we generally fail to realize is that in talking today to the Indians we are face to face with t...
AUSTIN COATES When I decided to go to university I didn't know what I wanted to do. When I had an opportunity ...
KIM COATES These volunteers are wonderful. Some have been here since 5:30 this morning setting up and directing...
CAROLYN COATES They want a jury that can say, 'I've heard about this case, but I can set aside what I've heard, fol...
BILL COATES We were busy everyday, it didn't really get slow until we had that window when we were coming home.
BILL COATES I wasn't going to die wondering why we didn't win, like we didn't win (when competing with) Brisbane...
JOHN COATES The Ivy League is definitely part of the third that's a reach. The [CAA] conference itself is much b...
ROY COATES The Ivy League is a step up for the most part.
ROY COATES Limonene has been around forever, carbon dioxide as well. What we've been able to do is devise this ...
GEOFFREY COATES Limonene has been around forever, carbon dioxide as well. What we've been able to do is devise this ...
GEOFFREY COATES This has always been about the fact that the Michigan wine industry has been so successful that (dis...
RICK COATES And now they're looking at having the rules change.
RICK COATES I know for a fact that most of our smaller wineries would have to close up under provisions of that ...
RICK COATES The typical exposure has been an occasional lapse for a variety of reasons -- the condom broke, the ...
TOM COATES Stadiums are generally going to be used 85 or 90 times a year - between a couple of games prior to t...
DENNIS COATES If you think they're going to substitute between different kinds of spending, then there's no new sp...
DENNIS COATES Should the Colts happen to win the Super Bowl, that would have an effect.
DENNIS COATES They've changed their stance, which is good, which is a positive and the market has taken that posit...
MICHAEL COATES Emily and Sarah were very outstanding. Elena also did quite well.
ROY COATES We appreciate all our sponsors who support us here at the center.
CAROLYN COATES We also have our own library, because sometimes seniors forget about taking books back and they have...
CAROLYN COATES They focused on their game, not searching on the screens to see who's got what. Amy was totally rela...
TOM COATES Getting people stranded on their rooftops to safety is a priority. We want to get people out because...
FRANK COATES Looters are hitting food stores, they're hitting department stores, they're in jewelry stores and gu...
FRANK COATES People need to take this very seriously and get to a safe area while they can.
FRANK COATES I'm getting deluged by people wanting to know more, ... It's fun to talk to people envisioning other...
GEOFFREY COATES We're really excited about not only using a byproduct from the orange juice industry but also from t...
GEOFFREY COATES The issues are still on the table, but there's been no decision at this time,
LINDA COATES That means that just about every mare that could have gotten pregnant did, ... This is the first tim...
LINDA COATES If the public decides they're not in favor of fertility control, we have only one option left - gath...
LINDA COATES That means that just about every mare that could have gotten pregnant did, ... This is the first tim...
LINDA COATES It means if the board doesn't make a ruling in 45 days, we'll have to shut the program down for this...
LINDA COATES They seem to be able to handle these catastrophic events and survive,
LINDA COATES The longer you drift the more you will learn. What you learn affects the kind of person you end up t...
CHANG TA-CHUN The best, the most exquisite automobile is a walking stick; and one of the finest things in life is ...
ROBERT COATES HOLLIDAY Greatness is achieving something unimaginable and doing that feat with ease
LEE S COATES Is there anywhere else to sleep tonight... Anywhere?' I pleaded.
There's Mei's office, but you'...
TA'AFULI ANDREW FIU