My good friend, the poet Kofi Natambu, once said, "Contradiction... by Paul Beatty

My good friend, the poet Kofi Natambu, once said, "Contradiction is how we operate."

Paul Beatty

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All this angst, all this stuff we all feel, is just tied to makin... by Paul Beatty

All this angst, all this stuff we all feel, is just tied to making art. It's so ancient.

ancient stuff art

I don't write to put it in a drawer, I hope that people see it. by Paul Beatty

I don't write to put it in a drawer, I hope that people see it.

drawers writing people

If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door. by Paul Beatty

If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door.

humor life funny

There's this line between propriety and how we really speak and how we really think. And I'm just trying to have fun with that stuff.

fun trying thinking

People are very comfortable when race relations get looked at retrospectively. Slavery, the civil rights movement, etc.

race rights people

There are many similarities between Germans and blacks. The nouns themselves are loaded with so much historical baggage it's impossible for anyone to be indifferent to the simple mention of either group. We're two insightful people looking for reasons to love ourselves; and let's not forget we both love pork and wear sandals with socks.

simple love two

I'm not searching for the truth.That's too much pressure . by Paul Beatty

I'm not searching for the truth.That's too much pressure .

too-much pressure

I wrote poems and an essay about that weird language. We still remember it to a certain extent, and it still comes up when we're all together. It's so fundamental to how I think.

fundamentals together thinking

I had a student once come up to me and we were talking about this incident, and, of course, I never had the right thing to say. But later on, I realized I should have said: Don't write about trying to change the world, just write about a changed world or a world that's not changing. Let that do the work.

should-have writing talking

Why are the mainstream buzz things rarely contemporary? It doesn't happen very often. It's hard to feel culpable or implicated or even apathetic.

apathetic buzz mainstream

Sometimes I highjack memories. Sometimes I switch them around. Sometimes they're just in the background, like some little bass note. Those things have carried me through, especially when I first started writing. They're still there, but more in the distance these days.

distance writing memories

Maybe I'm just sensitive to that person who's on the outside. by Paul Beatty

Maybe I'm just sensitive to that person who's on the outside.

sensitive persons

I'm doing all these interviews with the British press, the Italian press, and others. They all want to talk about this stuff. I don't have a stance; I don't have a go-to thing to say about any of this.

italian want stuff

I just rode cross-country and the thing I noticed is just how afraid everyone is, and how nervous and scared and angry people are. From my point of view, I don't think it's all necessarily justified, but I think that's easy for me to say.

views country thinking

I think there's nothing new going on. Except that, you're even more public than you've ever been.There's some good and some bad to that.

nothing-new thinking

It makes me think about how you hear these young people say, "I see you, man." Or even if you go and watch some basketball game over the summer and the announcer goes, "I see you," and you see that player smile. You know what I mean? That thing of just being recognized, especially when you do a little subtle thing. I don't know.

basketball summer mean

I'll say this, and it'll sound like bullshit, but it's not: I don't really pay attention to this stuff [Man Booker Prize] very much. I think part of it is I can see myself wondering who's doing what and getting jealous, and none of that's healthy for me. So I just don't really.

jealous men thinking

I try to be accommodating, but I'm pretty much a loner. by Paul Beatty

I try to be accommodating, but I'm pretty much a loner.

Sometimes I would get frustrated, I'd think, "You know, this is a good book, how come no one is paying attention to it?" So it's nice to have some recognition.

nice book thinking

The other thing [my psychology professor] said to me was that I was always very mindful of the person who was away from the group, that I was always trying to bring them in.

always-trying psychology groups