I Was A New Person Then, I

When I Start To Write Something, I Suppose I Want It To Change Me, To Make Me Into Something Not Myself.

I Like To Be Depressing. I Feel It's My Duty To Make Everyone A Little Less Happy. You Know That Line In The Declaration Of Independence, "the Pursuit Of Happiness"? I've Come To Think That It Has No Meaning At All. You Cannot Pursue Happiness. And To Think That This Bad Little Sentence Has Determined Our Lives.

It's Very Funny, American Society: White Culture Can Do All Sorts Of Things And Get Away With It, But The Minute A Black Person Does It, It's Interpreted In Some Way.

Out Of The Corner Of One Eye, I Could See My Mother. Out Of The Corner Of The Other Eye, I Could See Her Shadow On The Wall, Cast There By The Lamplight. It Was A Big And Solid Shadow, And It Looked So Much Like My Mother That I Became Frightened. For I Could Not Be Sure Whether For The Rest Of My Life I Would Be Able To Tell When It Was Really My Mother And When It Was Really Her Shadow Standing Between Me And The Rest Of The World.

This Naming Of Things Is So Crucial To Possession - A Spiritual Padlock With The Key Thrown Irretrievably Away - That It Is A Murder, An Erasing, And It Is Not Surprising That When People Have Felt Themselves Prey To It (conquest), Among Their First Acts Of Liberation Is To Change Their Names.