I don't know, now, when I first looked at Hella and found her stale, found her body uninteresting, her presence grating. It seemed to happen all at o… - James Baldwin

I began plotting novels at about the time I learned to read. The story of my childhood is the usual bleak fantasy, and we can dismiss it with the restrained observation that I certainly would not consider living it again.

A change, a real change is brought about when the people make a change. The poet or the revolutionary is there to articulate the necessity, but until the people themselves apprehend it, nothing can happen. When the people have taken the necessity, when the movement starts moving, then the world moves. Perhaps, it can't be done without the poet, but, it certainly can't be done without the people. The poet and the people get on generally very badly, and yet they need each other. The poet knows it sooner than the people do. The people usually know it after the poet is dead; but, that's all right. The point is to get your work done, and your work is to change the world. (1973)

You have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.