Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotations | Page 2

For me, my writing benefits from my experience.

Everybody thinks that an important book has to be a big, long book.

African Americans are one of the oldest ethnic groups in this country. We been here since the beginning. Before the beginning.

It's kind of selfish to say that you're only going to fight for a victory that you will live to see.

The essential relationship across American history between black people and white people is one of exploitation and one of plunder. This is not, you know, necessarily about, you know, whether you're a good person or not or whether you see black people, you know, on the street, and you're willing to shake their hands and be polite.

You can oppose reparations all you want, but you got to know the facts. You really, really do.

We are all losers in comparison to Malala Yousafzai. But we are not all geniuses. Like me.

My dad always associated information with liberation. He was very much in that Malcolm X tradition.

'White America' is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and control our bodies.

We have this long history of racism in this country, and as it happens, the criminal justice system has been perhaps the most prominent instrument for administering racism. But the racism doesn't actually come from the criminal justice system.