"Art is a weapon in the struggle of ideas, the class struggle."

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Source : "Art is a weapon in the struggle of ideas: interviewing amiri baraka". Interview With Sophie Erskine, www.3ammagazine.com.

Amiri Baraka

#Art Quotes #Struggle Quotes #Class Quotes

“I would say I'd rather dig a ditch, you know, do hard, manual labor than write lyrics.”
“When I was young, I had a list of things that I wanted in a husband. I knew what he should read and what sports he should like and blah, blah, blah. But the truth is, that the list was a shocking mirror image of me. You want to marry yourself when you are young. All the things you think are so urgently important, when you get older, you discover they don't have anything to do with love.”
“It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.”
“To walk across the street is a risk.”
“Blay said yet again, that old, familiar voice cutting through all of those years of rejection and judgment, giving him not just a rope of acceptance to hang on to, but a flesh-and-blood hand to lead him out of the darkness of his past... And into a future that didn't require lies or excuses, because what he was, and what they were, was both extraordinary-and not hing out of the ordinary. Love, after all, was universal.”
“Iâ€™m a monster,â€ said the shadow of the Marquess suddenly. â€œEveryone says so.â€ The Minotaur glanced up at her. â€œSo are we all, dear,â€ said the Minotaur kindly. â€œThe thing to decide is what kind of monster to be. The kind who builds towns or the kind who breaks them.”
“..I am a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well, if you give me a moment, I will tell you. A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be.”
“Pretend to be a delinquent?" I asked clarifying. "You can do it," Dave advised me. "Just don't smile, and try to look like you're considering stealing something.”

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