Amiri Baraka Quotes

“& love is an evil word. Turn it backwards/see, see what I mean? An evol word.”

“A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.”

“The major poets of New Jersey have all suffered, whether it's Whitman, who lost his job for 'Leaves of Grass,' or William Carlos Williams, who was called a communist, or Ginsberg, whose 'Howl' was prosecuted, or myself. If you practise poetry the way I think it needs to be done, you're going to put yourself in jeopardy.”

“There is other disturbing facts surround the hideous 911 attacks, which my family and I could see from the third floor bathroom window of our homes!”

“Let there be no love poems writtenUntil love can exist freely andCleanly.”

“Don’t wait for the tornado, struggles make you reach the castle.”

“When it comes to Jews, you have a two-thousand-year memory, but when it comes to us Palestinians, you have a sixty-year amnesia.”

“What amazes me most is that we, as a people, have shared our collective story of being thrown out of our homeland, Palestine, with each other and with many others- actually we have bored the world with this collective story- but somehow the individual Palestinian shies away, or perhaps is too afraid, to share the very personal story of being thrown out of her or his home, living room, or bedroom. These personal stories are seldom told, not even to our own children, perhaps not even to ourselves. I guess the wound remains open.”

“We take unholy risks to prove we are what we cannot be. For instance, I am not even crazy.”

“Amri ya Kristo ilipima imani ya yule kipofu, ikiithibitisha na kuiimarisha. Bila kuchelewa au kusita, kipofu alitii amri ya Mungu: Alikwenda kuosha macho yake katika bwawa la Siloamu na aliona. Wengi wanaweza kuona ni kazi ya kipuuzi kwa mtu ambaye ni kipofu kufanya kazi ndogo kama hiyo ili aone. Lakini kwa vile alitii, kipofu alipona. Baraka huja kupitia utii. Kwa maana nyingine, kipofu alimtii Yesu bila kuona. Lakini matokeo yake, alipata kuona papohapo; ambapo baadaye, hatimaye, alipokea uponyaji halisi wa kiroho.”