Not Black Quotes

#1. When people who are not black are interested in what I do, frankly, I'm always surprised. I don't know if it's my low expectations for white people or what.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

#2. We should be proud that so many want to come to America, that it is still seen as the land of opportunity. Let's make it a land of legal work, not black-market jobs. Let's make it a land of work, not welfare. Our land should be one of assimilation, not hiding in the shadows.

Rand Paul

#3. Whiteness is the color of death, you know, not black. Wetness is life, the breeder and shaper of life. In the beginning the sun was black. So all light was absorbed before it had a chance to return. And our dreams, then, were empty.

Jim Carroll

#4. I think love keeps on changing every day.
It's not black and white and it's definitely more than 50 shades of grey.

Ville Valo

#5. As a lifelong Oregonian, I prefer our forests green, not black.

Greg Walden

#6. I think that America certainly has racism, I think that any industrialized country does. But when you see how many million fans Barack Obama has who are not black, it would lead one to the conclusion that millions of Americans are in fact not burdened by the albatross of racism.

Henry Rollins

#7. Tutankhamun was not black, and the portrayal of ancient Egyptian civilization as black has no element of truth to it.

Zahi Hawass

#8. Life's not black-and-white. Sometimes the ends justifies the means.

Emily Giffin

#9. The idea of 'talking white,' a lot of people grew up around that, just the idea that if you speak with proper diction and come off as educated that it's not black and that it's actually anti-black and should be considered only something that white people would do.

Chance The Rapper

#10. Real leaders have to live a paradoxical life, where they must break the rules in order to maintain them. If your expectations are high, you're setting yourself up for disillusionment. The land of governance is paved with gray streets, not black or white ones.

Beau Willimon

#11. I'm not black, but there's a whole lot of times I wish I could say I'm not white.

Frank Zappa

#12. I'm not black on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and a woman on Thursday, Friday and Saturday

Gloria Steinem

#13. Love is not black and white. It's not even gray. Love is every shade of color in the spectrum, changing with every ray of light given and stolen.

Cassia Leo

#14. Because I want every kid to be viewed as a person rather than as a member of a certain race does not mean that I'm not black enough ... Do they want me to be positive just for black kids and negative for everybody else?

Michael Jordan

#15. Boredom is not black licorice, Snicket," she said. "There's no reason to share it with me.

Lemony Snicket

#16. I eat kung pao chicken like it's going out of style, but I'm pretty sure I don't have an Asian cell in my body. I love Toni Morrison novels although I'm not black. I'm straight and I'm happily married. The reason I work here is because I think you deserve that, too.

Jodi Picoult

#17. Life is not black and white when it comes to perception.

Tariq Ramadan

#18. Hey, you know something people?
I'm not black
But there's a whole lots a times
I wish I could say I'm not white

Frank Zappa

#19. I write flawed characters. Ones that do not always make the best decisions and are driven by ambition or lust. They are not black or white, they are in the large space that exists between.

Kevin James Breaux

#20. I come in with this rock 'n' roll-oriented music, and it's not black enough ... I've always had to deal with this black-white thing.

Lenny Kravitz

#21. The world is not black and white; there are lots of shades of grey. There are good things and bad things in every era, and I think it's kind of very blindfolded to say one era was wonderful, as it was wonderful, but there were a lot of bad things as well.

Iris Apfel

#22. I have always believed, heretofore, in the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence, that all men are born free and equal; but of late it appears that some men are born slaves, and I regret that they are not black, so all the world might know them.

Benjamin F. Wade

#23. White-on-white crime is a devastation in America like so-called black-on-black crime. It's not black or white-on-white crime. It's proximity murder.

Michael Eric Dyson

#24. Well, the most important thing a president will be is commander-in-chief. And that requires having an understanding of the complex issues on foreign policy. Foreign policy presents us often with hard choices, not black or white choices.

Marco Rubio

#25. People don't understand us. They don't understand me. They think it's so black and white, that he makes me miserable and that I should be with someone else and that I deserve something else.
But it's not black and white at all. It's gray. It's a never ending world of gray.

Amanda Grace

#26. We have two nations, and it's not black or white. It's red and blue. Under Republican leadership, cities tend to do better. Cities are destroyed under Democrats, because they don't know how to deal with the constituency; they're terrified.

Greg Gutfeld

#27. With so many thousand joys, is it not black ingratitude to call the world a place of sorrow and torment?

Jean Paul

#28. Human nature is not black and white but black and grey.

Graham Greene

#29. I have been skiing since I was in school, but I'm not great. I am never going to break an Olympic record, I just want to go down the hills, on red or blue runs, but not ... black.

Alexander McQueen

#30. I'm to trying to say I'm something I'm not. Black people understand that. I'm just doing my raps, my way. Rap is black. I recognize that and respect that. I'm just a white guy trying to rap, and I got lucky.

Vanilla Ice

#31. Both had indulged in, if not Black Magic, then certainly magic of a darker hue than seemed desirable or legitimate.

Susanna Clarke

#32. I always give the example, if you turn on the radio today, black radio, Lenny Kravitz is not black. Bob Marley wasn't black: in the beginning, only white college stations played Bob Marley.

Spike Lee

#33. You listen to Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio in it, and it's not Black Sabbath. They should have just called it 'Heaven and Hell' right from the beginning. Because you listen to that 'Heaven and Hell' album, that doesn't sound anything close to Black Sabbath.

Zakk Wylde

#34. And I'm happy to say that I'm able to find people wherever I go that are not black, not white - they're just human beings. That's where I am, where I've been and where I intend to stay.

Chico Hamilton

#35. She lived and breathed the streets, and would lay her neck on the line to protect its occupants. But how did she tell an idealist that the world was not black and white?

Caroline Mitchell

#36. I don't tend to like race jokes. I don't like Jew jokes and black jokes, and they make me very uncomfortable, probably because I'm both. Well, I'm not black - but if I was then I could dance better.

Iliza Shlesinger

#37. But I'm telling you, something happens to beautiful people. They think that something extra is owed to them by life, by God, by all the people around them. They think their life has to be better, more dramatic, happier - in color, not black and white.

Paullina Simons

#38. I want to burn as a beacon of possibility. I don't want nobody to misconstrue the commercial success I've had as anything other than an example of what black music is capable of. And what it's capable of is being more than just black. I'm not black or white anymore. I'm Cee Lo Green.

CeeLo Green

#39. I understand that life is not black and white, everything has a different hand, lots of them, I act according to the situation.

Danila Kozlovsky

#40. I really see food as subjective. It's a creative outlet. It's something that you do for fun. It's a gray area. It's not black and white or right and wrong.

Graham Elliot

#41. Life is not black and white. The closes we ever get to either of those colors is wearing them.

Karen Marie Moning

#42. When you spend your life acting and being other people, as opposed to being the one person that you are, you learn that life is gray sometimes, not black and white. That what you thought was true isn't necessarily true if you switch sides.

Sydney Pollack

#43. Teaching Black Studies, I find that students are quick to label a black person who has grown up in a predominantly white setting and attended similar schools as "not black enough." ... Our concept of black experience has been too narrow and constricting.

Bell Hooks

#44. Every pastor I talk to says, and particularly if they're African American they'll say, "I'm not black enough for African Americans. I'm not white enough for the whites. I'm not Hispanic enough."

Michael Emerson

#45. I've always been multi-cultural myself. I'm not black and I'm not white and I'm not pink and I'm not green. Eartha Kitt has no color, and that is how barriers are broken.

Eartha Kitt

#46. Everything is not black-and-white. I'm really interested in the gray area - not justifying it, not glorifying it, not condoning it, but at least having people see there's a genesis for every event in our lives. There's some divine order to it, whether it's ugly or beautiful.

Isaiah Washington

#47. In tragedy, it's hard to find a good resolution; it's not black and white: it's a big fog of gray.

Paul Dano

#48. When you're in a black group, you have to keep in mind you're not black. You just have to be sensitive. We have to be appreciative that the black nationalist struggle is a nationalist struggle.

Yuri Kochiyama

#49. The world's not black and white," she tells me. "Life doesn't have good guys and bad guys or a beginning, middle, and end. Not while you're living it. It's just people doing stuff that's beautiful or stupid or somewhere in the middle.

Robin York

#50. There are two kinds of people in the world - only two kinds. Not black or white, rich or poor, but those either dead in sin or dead to sin.

Leonard Ravenhill

#51. No, Kramisha, he's not black. He's a killer bird with evil for his Daddy.

P.C. Cast

#52. Too hard for MTV, not black enough for BET, just let me be ...

Jadakiss

#53. Life isn't that simple; it's not black and white. You have to take the light with the dark, and all the shadows in between.

Simone Nicole

#54. Rap actually comes out of punk rock, not black music.

Stanley Crouch

#55. This Thursday, Barack Obama is gonna give his acceptance speech, and reportedly it's going to include performances by Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen. Yeah. And they say Obama's not black enough!

Conan O'Brien

#56. It was a warm and natural feeling to be there. We were not black or white people. We were just people bound together by love and understanding. As I walked out of that church, I felt like I had rediscovered my inner peace.

Nancy B. Brewer

#57. So, to say Barack Obama is progress is saying that he's the first black person that is qualified to be president. That's not black progress. That's white progress.

Chris Rock

#58. I joke to people in the press that I realize I'm not black, I'm actually white. But I've got these roots in black American music. I love it.

Glenn Hughes

#59. Relationships are not straight forward. They're not black and white. Sometimes things don't always going in a straight line, and that's okay. Love can be very confusing.

Danica McKellar

#60. Everything's not black and white. We choose to make bad decisions or not. I wanted to explore that and shine a light on it. Chip is trying to be a better person and lead a better life. His methods are just super flawed.

Will Arnett

#61. I've played lots of villains in my time and I think the reason they've been so successful is that they're not two-dimensional. They're not black and white. That's the gig.

Mark Strong

#62. The wild is where you find it, not in some distant world relegated to a nostalgic past or an idealized future; its presence is not black or white, bad or good, corrupted or innocent... We are of that nature, not apart from it. We survive because of it, not instead of it.

Renee Askins

#63. Human beings are not black and white.

Hugh Panaro

#64. The United States is not a nation of black and white people. Any fool can see that white people are not really white, and that black people are not black.

Albert Murray

#65. we all are equal; I'm not black and you aren't white

Fany Renjana

#66. I think the best comedy is tragicomic. Yeah, I suppose if you were to look at everything I've done, there is a bit of a black streak through all of it. It's not deliberate: it's what makes me laugh, and there's a fine tradition of it, especially in Ireland.

Sharon Horgan

#67. I feel the need to scream, and even if the scream is not answered, I find my sanity in the echo.

Lewis Black

#68. In fairy-tales, witches always wear silly black hats and black cloaks, and they ride on broomsticks. But this is not a fairy-tale. This is about REAL WITCHES. The most important thing you should know about REAL WITCHES is this. Listen very carefully. Never forget what is coming next.

Roald Dahl

#69. Since shotguns are not military weapons, your local sporting goods dealer will have good information about them, as long as you aren't black, Spanish, or a white freak.

William Powell

#70. Stop saying you're not racist because you have a friend that's black. That's like saying you're not a pedophile because you have a friend that's a kid.

Daniel Tosh

#71. There are not more than five primary colors (blue, yellow, red, white, and black), yet in combination they produce more hues than can ever been seen.

Sun Tzu

#72. You can't make me mad by calling me names that are true. Certainly I'm a rascal, and why not? It's a free country and a man may be a rascal if he chooses. It's only hypocrites like you, my dear lady, just as black at heart but trying to hide it, who becomes enraged when called by their right names.

Margaret Mitchell

#73. After the horse dance was over, it seemed that I was above the ground and did not touch it when I walked.

Black Elk

#74. People are always going to, you know, find something wrong with people who are not the exact same as them. That's just what it is. Black, white, short, tall, religions, whatever. People are bad.

Chris Rock

#75. What good's a black face if it means I'm just someone else's property? Why give me these arms and legs just to carry someone else's load, not my own?

Stacey Lee

#76. I grew up here, and it's always been a very diverse community. So for people to come out and say that there's some long-standing anger or there's a history of racial tension is absolutely ridiculous. There's not a black-white divide in Ferguson.

James Knowles III

#77. Every white person in this country-and I do not care what he or she says-knows one thing. They may not know, as they put, "what I want",but they know they would not like to be black here.
If they know that, then they know everything they need to know, and whatever else they say is a lie.

James Baldwin

#78. I do not need the strength of your arm to make a knight of you, Gavin. All I need is your heart, and that you have given,' the Prince said.

Chuck Black

#79. If I describe a person's physical appearance in my writing, which I often do, especially in fiction, I never say someone is "black" or "white." I may describe the color of their skin - black eyes, beige skin, blue eyes, dark skin, etc. But I'm not talking about race.

Jamaica Kincaid

#80. She'd read in novels of people who couldn't speak because their hearts were too full and she'd always thought, Not my black heart.
But now she couldn't speak, because it was too much, whatever it was.

Loretta Chase

#81. If we're not going to tax the rich anymore, we're going to create class warfare.

Lewis Black

#82. There are black men who are madly in love with white women. God bless them, if that's what works for them. I just hope that we can strike a balance that portrays black folks and the black family in a light that's not extreme. Those are the types of characters that I find myself attracted to.

Nia Long

#83. And all of this, all these physical aspects of painting at that time excited me very much. You could do a picture in just black and white. I mean all the things, whether you're soliciting permission or not, do give you permission.

Robert Rauschenberg

#84. When introducing a character, you're usually better off sticking with broad strokes. The important thing at that point is not what color hair someone has or how tall they are, but rather, what kind of person they are.

Jason Black

#85. I would like to play Pebble Beach at some point. I keep waiting for them to call and ask me to that little pro-am thing, but I'm not big enough.

Lewis Black

#86. They allow us to disrespect our Black woman. A lot of these things would be considered criminal if it were to be carried out in the streets. That's like when they tell you after you buy your VHS and you rent movies they tell you not to copy the movies.

Afrika Bambaataa

#87. I saw her note the way I hovered over the various ethnicities on the form. First the 'white' box, then to the airspace over the 'black' box, a kind of momentary hesitation, a protest of stillness, a staring into the abyss of everything I did not know about myself. She, like me, was made of halves.

Olivia Sudjic

#88. Bob Marley performed the 'One Love Peace' concert in Jamaica with the two different warring political sides. There's always been that in black music and culture in general. It's no surprise because black music is such a reflection of what's going on in black life. It's not unusual for hip-hop.

Mos Def

#89. I'm not so in with the prescriptive avant-garde agenda. I can do that sort of thing, but I feel that I'm still interested enough in song structure. When I look at a lyric on the page, the lyric is alive to me, looking like soldiers in a field. I can move it around, and it's very black-and-white.

Scott Walker

#90. It was inestimably important for me to look at the lights of Amherst town in the rain, with the wet black tree-skeletons against the limpid streetlights and gray November mist, and then look at the boy beside me and feel all the hurting beauty go flat because he wasn't the right one-not at all.

Sylvia Plath

#91. As anger is a passing storm, so it comes not gradually and with signs, but like a sudden sweep of wind or black squall.

James Vila Blake

#92. A lot of joblessness in the black community doesn't seem to be reachable through fiscal and monetary policies. People have not been drawn into the labor market even during periods of economic recovery.

William Julius Wilson

#93. But remember this: you're strong because of your people - not in spite of them.

Daniel Black

#94. Not only does a lens distort forms, but the ordinary plate makes an unholy mess of colour in its tone relations. Yellow becomes black, and blue white. Black sunflowers against a white sky - what a travesty!

Walter J. Phillips

#95. The prison industrial system, things like that are cleverly put in place to attempt to marginalize a certain group of people - and it's not only black, it's replete across the American society.

Keith Stanfield

#96. I am not opposed to religion. Far from it. I'm for anything that gives people peace. That's why I am also for hot tubs and compact discs of whale songs. Anything that soothes the soul is fine by me.

Michael Ian Black

#97. She rode at the head of a shining line of black limos like the head raven in a convocation of black birds. Her husband had moved people, and, in so moving, had become their Lancelot Satterwhite, too. Something of him lived in them, was not hers, was now theirs.

Lauren Groff

#98. Remember that the devil is the one who tells you to play a tune that's not your own, and you can drive him right on out into the cold by playing what's in your soul.

Jennifer Mason-Black

#99. There's no question that I'm African-American. OK? I'm a black man. We're not going to escape that.

Mekhi Phifer

#100. He's usually so dour. But not now, not with me, and I like it. He doesn't interact with others without the shield he puts in front of him.

Lena Black