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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All people, regardless of whether they're athletes or not, should treat people the way they want to be treated.
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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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I see a lot of comments on Twitter and stuff about how ugly I am, how bad I am at the drums, how awkward I look, and I'm like, yeah, I agree with most of those things.
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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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So anyway, I've learned a lot about myself just in terms of acting but just work ethic and interesting things like full-page monologues or talking straight into camera, which I had never gotten to do before.
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There will be no name-calling when I disagree with anyone, no disparaging remarks toward anyone, no taking sole credit for collective achievements or blaming others when things go wrong.
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Often, entertainment goes deeper, in terms of ideas, than the newspapers.
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If a story is in you, it has to come out.
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Women in America read 'lifestyle' pages which are really glorifications of shopping. They teach us we must veil ourselves in make-up to be loved. And we willingly take the veil, thinking ourselves freed by it. Make-up is no more optional for us than the veil is for Arab women: it is our Western version of the chador.
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The black artist's role in America is to aid in the destruction of America as he knows it.
