618 Quotes by Ta-Nehisi Coates

To be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world.

My chief identity, to my mind, was not 'writer' but 'college dropout.'

It is, I think, the very chaos of America that allowed me to prosper.

Chaos is what we have. That is what I believe.

I was 24 when Samori was born. His mom was 23.

If, to the end of its existence, America harbors white supremacy, I don't know how remarkable that would be. France has dealt with anti-Semitism since its inception.

Black people are pledging their fealty to the state, and yet they aren't getting the same return. This is theft. It's systemized.

My job is to look out on that world that I write about and be as honest as I possibly can about that world. If that's optimistic and uplifting, OK. If it's not, OK.

The thing people have to remember is there's nothing natural about racism as it exists in America. I mean, we know this historically. We can look at 1619, when Africans first came here, and how early African slaves intermixed pretty indiscriminately with indentured white servants.