Sublime

From a young age, these boys speculated on their own legacy and critics eagerly bought their stock before they matured. But the importance of women is recognized belatedly.

I truly had not realized that Harlem had so many stores until I saw them all smashed open; the first time the word wealth ever entered my mind in relation to Harlem was when I saw it scattered in the streets. But one’s first, incongruous impression of plenty was countered immediately by an impression of waste. None of this was doing anybody any goo

Ta-Nehisi Coates: “The defining feature of being drafted into the Black race [is] the inescapable robbery of time.”

Jimmy Lee,

There were no roughnecks here. These people knew what whiskies were good, what wine was “the thing” with this food, that food, what places to go, how to dance, how to smoke, how much stress to put on love, how to dress, when to curse, and did not indulge (for the most part) in homosexuality but could discuss it without eagerness, distaste, curiosit

Baldwin

And the theater itself! It was no palace, no such Great Shakes as the Tivoli out south, for instance (where many colored people went every night). But you felt good sitting there, yes, good, and as if, when you left it, you would be going home to a sweet-smelling apartment with flowers on little gleaming tables; and wonderful silver on night-blue v