Marlon James is a Jamaican professor and writer. He has written four book and teaches literature at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.
He left Jamaica to escape the economic conditions and homophobic violence. He got a master’s degree in creative writing from Wilkes University in 2006. Now he is well known for his works and ranked Times Top Hundred Most Influential People In The World.
Here are some of his quotes that will enrich your mind.
Inspiring Marlon James Quotes
“Killing don’t need no reason. This is ghetto. Reason is for rich people. We have madness.” — Marlon James
“I think that’s what Toni Morrison and Alice Walker understand, the secret language of women. That it’s not a secret at all; men just don’t know how to listen.” — Marlon James
“If it no go so, it go near so. —Jamaican proverb” — Marlon James
“The dream didn’t leave, people just don’t know a nightmare when they right in the middle of one.” — Marlon James
“…Love isn’t saying, I love you but calling to say, did you eat” — Marlon James
“But in another city, another valley, another ghetto, another slum, another favela, another township, another intifada, another war, another birth, somebody is singing Redemption Song, as if the Singer wrote it for no other reason but for this sufferah to sing, shout, whisper, weep, bawl, and scream right here, right now.” — Marlon James,
“Those who think he had lucky breaks are not only unaware of the real story but also fall prey to that sin of the mediocre: bitchiness about others’ success” — Marlon James
“But sometimes when you’re too careful it just turns into a different kind of carelessness.” — Marlon James
“That’s what happens when you personify hopes and dreams in one person. He becomes nothing more than a literary device.” — Marlon James
“—The problem with a book is that you never know what it’s planning to do to you until you’re too far into it.” — Marlon James
“One of the things I fucking hate about my fellow Americans: whenever they fly to a foreign country, first thing they do, they try to find as much of America as they can get their hands on, even if it’s food in the shitty cafeteria.” — Marlon James
“You know, most of this feminism business was nothing more than white American women telling non-white women what to do and how to do it, with this patronizing if-you-become-just-like-me-you’ll-be-free bullshit” — Marlon James
“Bi oju ri enu a pamo. Not everything the eye sees should be spoken by the mouth.” — Marlon James
“Because people so poor that they can’t even afford shame and I wait.” — Marlon James
“People who say they don’t have a choice just too coward to choose.” — Marlon James
“Jamaica never gets worse or better, it just finds new ways to stay the same.” — Marlon James
“Bad feeling is a country no woman want to visit. So they take good feeling any which way it come. Sometime that good feeling come by taking on a different kind of bad feeling.” — Marlon James
“Living people wait and see because they fool themselves that they have time. Dead people see and wait.” — Marlon James
“Woman breed baby, but man can only make Frankenstein.” — Marlon James
“I hate people like that, people you have to protect while they keep hurting you.” — Marlon James
“A man will suffer misery to get to the bottom of truth, but he will not suffer boredom.” — Marlon James
“Hate and love be closer cousin than like and dislike.” — Marlon James
“When building monsters don’t be surprised when they become monstrous.” –Marlon James
“The problem with a book is that you never know what it’s planning to do to you until you’re too far in it.” — Marlon James
“When kings fall they fall on top of us.” —
Marlon James
