Townsend Harris Quotes

The receiving radio operator immediately said, “Please tell Sunray Delta Six that Sunray Six is being located and informed immediately. Expect his answer very soon!” A short time later, Harry Smith was summoned to the HQ Delta Company radio. He went to it and was told, “Sir, Lieutenant Colonel Townsend is waiting to speak to you.

During the first month the Comedy Act Theatre was open, Damon Wayans and Robert Townsend came in together. Club emcee, Robin Harris brought Damon onstage to do a set, and Damon made the mistake of dissing Harris in his own house, asking the audience, “Doesn’t that guy look like a black, ugly Eddie Murphy?” Harris heard the comment and returned to the stage. “They played ‘the Dozens’ and Robin destroyed Damon,” says club owner, Michael Williams. “Damon just stepped into something he couldn’t get out of. By the time Robin was finished with him, he was dumbfounded. He didn’t know what to do but stand there, hold the mic, and listen.”

If introspection is thought, Marvin was not introspective. He felt the contempt he lived under as raw sensation, as heat--heat in the ears, behind the eyes, in the tangled ganglia sheathed by the skull. And contempt, it seemed, was no different from fear. At Princeton he became afraid. It dawned on him that it was not enough to be bright (all Townsend Harris boys were bright): you had to be right. For the first time he was struck by the import of birthright--you slid out of the womb grasping it in your tiny fist, a certificate that guaranteed you would know how to speak and dress and scorn and brazenly intimidate everyone doomed to enter the world empty-handed. Not that Marvin was altogether empty-handed--he had his scholarship, and he had, most of all, the engine of his will and the grim burden of his hurt. He resisted humiliation by accepting it, sometimes almost appearing to invite it: it taught him what was suitable and what wasn't.

Townsend watched as the British poured across the Brandywine: “Our eyes were caught on a sudden by the appearance of the army coming out of the woods into the fields belonging to Emmor Jefferis, on the west side of the creek above the fording place. In a few minutes the fields were literally covered with them, and they were hastening towards us. Their arms and bayonets being raised, shone as bright as silver, there being a clear sky and the day exceedingly warm.” The scene was indeed impressive.