The Mark Of Fear Is Not Easily

Question Everything. Every Stripe, Every Star, Every Word Spoken. Everything.

And That's All We Are Jefferson, All Of Us On This Earth, A Piece Of Drifting Wood. Until We - Each Of Us, Individually- Decide To Become Something Else. I Am Still That Piece Of Drifting Wood, And Those Out There Are No Better. But You Can Be Better.

I Want You To Show Them The Difference Between What They Think You Are And What You Can Be.

I Have Learned As Much About Writing About My People By Listening To Blues And Jazz And Spirituals As I Have From Reading Novels. The Understatements In The Tenor Saxophone Of Lester Young, The Crystal, Haunting, Forever Searching Sounds Of John Coltrane, And The Softness And Violence Of Count Basie's Big Band - All Have Fired My Imagination As Much As Anything In Literature.

I Still Don't Even Know If The Sheriff Will Let Me See Him. And Suppose He Did; What Then? What Do I Say To Him? Do I Know What A Man Is? Do I Know How A Man Is Supposed To Die? I'm Still Trying To Find Out How A Man Should Live. Am I Supposed To Tell Someone How To Die Who Has Never Lived?