Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes

I thought of the great spectrum of The Mecca--black people from Belize, black people with Jewish mothers, black people with fathers from Bangalore, black people from Toronto and Kingston, black people who spoke Russian, who spoke Spanish, who played Mongo Santamaría, who understood mathematics and sat up in bone labs, unearthing the mysteries of the enslaved. There was more out there than I had ever hoped for, and I wanted you to have it. I wanted you to know that the world in its entirety could never be found in schools, alone, nor on the streets, alone, nor in the trophy case. I wanted you to claim the whole world, as it is. I wanted "Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus" to immediately be obvious to you.

This is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.

The pursuit of knowing was freedom to me, the right to declare your own curiosities and follow them through all manner of books. I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free. Slowly, I was discovering myself.

I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people's interests. The library is open, unending, free.

In a country authored and sustained by criminal irresponsibility.

The universe was playing with loaded dice, which insured an excess of cowards in our ranks.

This is one of those stories where the feeling of the moment stands in for visual details.

i think one has to even abandon the phrase "ally" and understand that you are not helping someone in a particular struggle; the fight is yours.