Toni Morrison, Emerson, and Cornel West Quotes

That's a totally generous free woman. She's fearless. She's not afraid of anything. She has very few material things. She has a little self-supporting skill that she performs. She doesn't run anybody's life. She's available for almost infinite love. If you need her--she'll deliver. And she has complete clarity about who she is. -- Toni Morrison

The artist cannot and must not take anything for granted, but must drive to the heart of every answer and expose the question the answer hides. We know, in the case of the person, that whoever cannot tell himself the truth about his past is trapped in it, immobilized in the prison of his undiscovered self. This is also true of nations." --"The Creative Process", Baldwin

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last scared but the integrity of your own mind. --"Self-Reliance," Emerson

I am currently reading Cornel West's Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism, which offers timeless analysis of our sociopolitical affairs. I was inspired by Ebad's high rating of Wests' books on Goodreads, and picked up West based on his recommendations.

I have not thought about democratic tradition, morality, or literature in a long time, and so, I struggle with this book. I struggle with the language, and the momentous ideas. Somehow, despite my current intellectual shortcomings, I approach West's vision with a sense of familiarity, comfort, and above all, gratitude. I feel like I understand his vision--albeit without following his argument---because I remember this vision from a former self, from the community activist-writer-feminist, from my days at Youth Solidarity Summer, or Sadie Nash Leadership Project, places that were very much about social justice, democratic spaces that encouraged transformative personal and political change. I yearn now for the writers, and thinkers that will give me equanimity in troubled financial times, when the materialism of my thoughts and the world seem increasingly heavy on my consciousness. I have forgotten the literature that used to provide me comfort. It is precisely as E.B White's 1934 essay titled, "Dusk in Fierce Pajamas" in the book Fierce Pajamas describes it: reaching for Haper's Bazaar as if it was food and quinine. I am grateful to these writers for articulating truth in various forms.

I am in desperate need of this sort of medicine, and so, have compiled a list of authors/books for the summer--

1) Cornel West

2) Toni Morrison

3) Tocqueville-- Democracy in America (some of the 935 pages)

4) Tariq Ramadan

5) Love the One You're With (chick lit)

Before I start graduate school, I have to get these readings done because there is no leisure reading in graduate school.