Amiri Baraka Quotes & Sayings

“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 to understand what art is.”

“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 I see it. Otherwise, I don't know why you do it.”

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

“I guess I was the most unbohemian of all bohemians. My bohemianism consisted of not wanting to get involved with the stupid stuff that I thought people wanted you to get involved with - ... namely America... Dwight Eisenhower, McCarthyism and all those great things.”

“To name something is to wait for it in the place you think it will pass.”

“A rich man told me recently that a liberal is a man who tells other people what to do with their money.”

“You can't be an American without being related to other Americans.”

“If the flag of an armed enemy of the U.S. is allowed to fly over government buildings, then it implies that slavery, or at least the threat of slavery, is sanctioned by that government and can still legally exist.”

“God has been replaced, as he has all over the West, with respectability and air conditioning.”

“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!”