Amiri Baraka Quotes
The black artist's role in America is to aid in the destruction of America as he knows it.
Quotes to Explore
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The first job I ever had was at a pool-liner-manufacturing plant. Minimum wage was $4.25, and that's what I was making. It was this huge, hot, un-air-conditioned factory staffed with all women and me. This is in Georgia, during the summertime, so it was pretty ridiculous.
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I have always been a generous and enthusiastic reader.
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In Bollywood, if you work with a superstar, even if you are a newcomer, you become a superstar. That didn't happen with me.
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Science without respect for human life is degrading to us all and reflects a hollow and deceptive philosophy, a philosophy that we as a people should never condone.
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Life is not always easy to live, but the opportunity to do so is a blessing beyond comprehension. In the process of living, we will face struggles, many of which will cause us to suffer and to experience pain.
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I am insecure. If you ask me, everybody is.
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I haven't done as many films as I would have liked.
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I've done all the table reads for Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow for all the pirate movies, because he's just been doing other stuff, and I just love the whole Jack Sparrow thing he's got going on; it is just genius, and I just think he has so much fun with it.
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I graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, with an English literature degree and travelled for a year before going to work.
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No one person is an island.
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I'm very fortunate to have gotten past the cancer problem.
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I will negotiate with my worst enemy.
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Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.
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I consider myself a progressive. I have a passion for people who work. To me, this is about forward looking versus backward looking. Ideological gradations are the wrong way to look at it.
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All the Junos, the Grammy nominations, the gold and platinum records, did nothing to assuage my conviction that I was an out-and-out loser.
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A family has its own rituals and its own superstitions.
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There are some good songs, but not the kind of song-writing that I remember, that I like. Springsteen still does it. Paul Simon, and there are also good writers, but that doesn't dominate the charts.
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Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos?
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I think, when you're younger, you're slightly spoilt with the situation you get put in and to get to work with the people I got to work with without really thinking about it.
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You have to walk carefully in the beginning of love; the running across fields into your lover's arms can only come later when you're sure they won't laugh if you trip.
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I cannot possibly believe that I have it made while so many black brothers and sisters are hungry, inadequately housed, insufficiently clothed, denied their dignity as they live in slums or barely exist on welfare.
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It's weird because I see black gay characters on television all the time, but do I relate to them? Not always, because they're set pieces.
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Taken as a whole the mass media seldom rises to the level of deplorable trash, but it is also true that there is no mass audience in America for anything better.
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The black artist's role in America is to aid in the destruction of America as he knows it.
