12.12.2011

James Baldwin

"Sugar-plum, what you want to be so evil with your baby for? Don't you know you done made me go out and get drunk, and I wasn't a-fixing to do that? I wanted to take you out somewhere tonight." And, while he spoke, his hand was on her breast, and his moving lips brushed her neck. And this caused such a war in her as could scarcely be endured. She felt that everything in existence between them was part of a might plan for her humiliation. She did not want his touch, and yet she did: she burned with longing and froze with rage. And she felt that he knew this and inwardly smiled to see how easily, on his part of the battlefield, his victory could be assured. But at the same time she felt that his tenderness, his passion, and his love were real.
- Go Tell It on the Mountain (1987), James Baldwin

This is how I feel. This is why I love literature. It can take all of the perplexing and swirling emotions inside of me and suddenly it is there in front of me, in black and white. Little pieces of me are found in every book, and I leave a bit of myself there too.
Words can't say everything, but they know what you felt. 

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