Clemantine

“creativity keeps the world alive, yet, everyday we are asked to be ashamed of honoring it, wanting to live our lives as artists. i’ve carried the shame of being a ‘creative’ since i came to the planet; have been asked to be something different, more, less my whole life. thank spirit, my wisdom is deeper than my shame, and i listened to who i was. i want to say to all the creatives who have been taught to believe who you are is not enough for this world, taught that a life of art will amount to nothing, know that who we are, and what we do is life. when we create, we are creating the world. remember this, and commit.”
― Nayyirah Waheed

“I had one more thing to add to my expanding world.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“If abandoned rage asks, Who should answer for this?/
Say, the very blood of our lives eats composure up.”
― Claudia Rankine, The End of the Alphabet: Poems

“People from different parts of the world can respond to the same story if it says something to them about their own history and their own experience.”
― Chinua Achebe, There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra