'Griot' is a French word which means, you know, really, literally, 'cry.' You know, like the town crier. You know, they come in and say, you know, 'It's nine o'clock; everything is cool.' You know, 'President Bush is a fool.'… — Amiri Baraka Copy Share Image
I had just been in some repressive situations - the black middle-class college scene and the crazy United States Air Force - and so… — Amiri Baraka Copy Share Image
what is lost because it is most precious what is most precious because it is lost — Amiri Baraka Copy Share Image
You have to get an individual who's willing to actually struggle with the system to change it. As long as you have people who… — Amiri Baraka Copy Share Image
I had a little portable typewriter. I call it my Harlem Literary Fellowship. — Amiri Baraka Copy Share Image
I'm fully conscious all the time that I'm an American Negro, because it's part of my life. But I also know that if I… — Amiri Baraka Copy Share Image
The artist's role is to raise the consciousness of the people. To make them understand life, the world and themselves more completely. That's how… — Amiri Baraka Copy Share Image
The films of Warhol, when they are about anything are about sucking people off. This can be high art, to people who are interested… — Amiri Baraka Copy Share Image
The poet is someone, I think, who's interested in registering experience immediately or giving you the sense of immediacy and directness. — Amiri Baraka Copy Share Image
“Poems are bullshit unless they are teeth or trees or lemons piled on a step. Or black ladies dying of men leaving nickel hearts beating them down. Fuck poems and they are useful, wd they shoot come at you, love what you are, breathe like wrestlers, or shudder strangely after pissing. We want live words of the hip world live… — Amiri Baraka Copy Share
Thought is more important than art…To revere art and have no understanding of the process that forces it into existence, is finally not even… — Amiri Baraka Copy Share Image
Jimmy Baldwin was not only a writer, an international literary figure: he was a man, spirit, voice - old and black and terrible as… — Amiri Baraka Copy Share Image
