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" I write what I write in the way that I write it. I'm not being abstract, you know. I'm talking about something that, you know, is a part of my life. "

Ta-Nehisi Coates

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" You can't tolerate anybody attempting to threaten or intimidate your body. You must respond with force. "

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" In comics, you have to imagine what happens. I really loved it; I loved collecting. I loved following the adventures and figuring out what was going to happen next. I was a huge X-Men fan; I was a huge Spider-Man fan, and, to large degree, I remain one. It's literature for me; it's art. "

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" I think a lot about the private emotions of black people - what we feel and yet is rarely publicly expressed. "

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" The casualties in the Civil War amount to more than all other wars - all other American wars combined. More people died in that war than World War II, World War I, Vietnam, etc. And that was a war for white supremacy. It was a war to erect a state in which the basis of it was the enslavement of black people. "

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" When people think about reparations, they immediately think about people who've been dead for 100 years. "

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" I don't want them to read what I'm writing and say, 'I think that's right,' and agree with me. I want them to read something and then walk away and be haunted by it. "

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" If I wrote a Jewish superhero, he'd have awesome time-traveling powers. I'd call him Doctorow. "

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" I've seen, and liked, 'Insecure' and 'Atlanta.' "

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" Many, many people of the Revolutionary generation, the generation that fought in the Revolutionary War, understood that slavery was somehow in contradiction to what America was saying it was. And many of those folks also, at the very least, gave land to African Americans when they were liberated. "

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" You may not be able to change the course of government, but you can achieve some peace. And books were the path to that. I grew up in a house where books were everywhere. "

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" Eddie Conway is central to my first memories. My parents used to take me to, when it was open, the Baltimore city penitentiary to see Eddie Conway - I was talking to my dad about this recently - from the time I might have been one or two years old. I mean, literally, my first memories are of black men in jail, specifically of Eddie Conway. "

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" The process of getting conscious, for me, was a very, very uncomfortable, disturbing, and sometimes physically painful process. And so that's the standard to which I write, because it was what I've experienced over my time. "

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" Like a lot of people, I'm very, very concerned about Senator Clinton's record. I'm very, very concerned about where her positions were in the 1990s, when we had some of the most disgusting legislation in terms of our criminal justice, really, in this country's history. "

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" There isn't a dude outside my dad who had greater influence on my life. "

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" The only people who usually have input on my writing are my wife and my editor. I'm not in conversation with anyone except the people I report on and the people I work with. "

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" When people hear the term 'political prisoner,' especially on the Left, it becomes a kind of abstraction. Folks are aware of injustice, and they're aware that there are folks in prison who are in prison, you know, largely because of their activism. "

Ta-Nehisi Coates

" Every writer dreams of having the ability to hold forth for 8,000 words and pull all these different forms together: history, reportage, journalism. That was all I really wanted, and 'The Atlantic' was my first high-profile opportunity. "

Ta-Nehisi Coates

" I think riots happen when communities are under pressure for long periods of time. That's not a mistake. "

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" Amiri Baraka went to Howard. Lucille Clifton went to Howard. Ossie Davis went to Howard. And I was aware of that when I was there. Charles Drew went to Howard. Thurgood Marshall went to the law school. Being aware of that and having all of that brought to bear, again, it's one of those things that I can't really separate from my career as a writer. "

Ta-Nehisi Coates

" I constantly write about my safety walking to and from school, and then I would come home at night, and I would cut on the TV, and I would watch a show like 'The Wonder Years,' or I would watch, you know, some other show like 'Family Ties.' "

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" If I could have anything - you know, and this is across the board for any presidential candidate - I would have a greater acknowledgment of history in our policy and in our affairs. "

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" I never expected my writing to become as popular as it did. "

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" We want to believe racism is an artifact of the past, and if you have a political massacre, that contradicts that. "

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" One of the things we tell ourselves as African-Americans is if we work hard, play by the rules, we do start back a little ways, but if we can be twice as good, somehow we can escape history and heritage and legacy. "

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" My belief is in the chaos of the world and that you have to find your peace within the chaos and that you still have to find some sort of mission. "

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" The African-American tradition, in the main, is very, very church-based, very, very Christian. It accepts, you know, certain narratives about the world. I didn't really have that present in my house. "

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" When you write, you're inside the project. You can't really think about the reception. It has to be worth it even if no one reads it. "

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" When I see Bruce Banner becoming the Hulk, it's only a picture. My imagination has to do some of the work there, to impute feeling and everything. We're talking about something that's so surreal, it's just not possible within the world as we know it. So that requires a form that is not so literal. "

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" Throughout his eight years in office, Barack Obama endured a campaign of illegitimacy waged either by pluralities or majorities of the Republican party. Donald Trump rooted his candidacy in that campaign. It's fairly obvious. "

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" Somebody once told me, black people, in and of themselves, are cosmopolitan. There's cosmopolitanism within the black experience. There's an incredible amount. "

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