Quotes by Amiri Baraka

About Amiri Baraka:

Amiri Baraka was an African-American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at a number of universities, including the State University of New York at Buffalo and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He received the PEN Open Book Award, formerly known as the Beyond Margins Award, in 2008 for Tales of the Out and the Gone.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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.

Amiri Baraka

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

Amiri Baraka

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

Amiri Baraka

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!

Amiri Baraka

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 tho...

Amiri Baraka

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.

Amiri Baraka

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

Amiri Baraka

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.

Amiri Baraka

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

Amiri Baraka

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

Amiri Baraka

This is said to us, even as this counterfeit president has legalized the Confederate Flag in Mississippi.

Amiri Baraka

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

Amiri Baraka

Author Bio

  • NameAmiri Baraka
  • DescriptionAfrican-American writer
  • AliasesImamu Amear Baraka; LeRoi Jones; Everett LeRoi Jones
  • BornOctober 7, 1934
  • DiedJanuary 9, 2014
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPoet; Writer; Playwright
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship