Though I had never had any assignments from a college professor, I had made much harder and more prolonged attempts at self-expression than any of th… - Richard Wright

And, curiously, he felt that he was something, somebody, precisely and simply because of that cold threat of death. The terror of the white world had left no doubt in him about his worth; in fact, that white world had guaranteed his worth in the most brutal and dramatic manner. Most surely he was was something, in the eyes of the white world, or it would not have threatened him as it had. That white world, then, threatened as much as it beckoned. Though he did not know it, he was fatally in love with that white world, in love in a way that could never be cured. That white world's attempt to curb him dangerously and irresponsibly claimed him for its own.

A slow autumn rain:
The sad eyes of my mother
Fill a lonely night.

He came like a sledgehammer, like a giant out of the mountain with a sledgehammer, writing with a sledgehammer...