Vincent Noble

“...my point is that the only authentic identity for the African is the tribe...I am Nigerian because a white man created Nigeria and gave me that identity. I am black because the white man constructed black to be as different as possible from his white. But I was Igbo before the white man came.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun

“Sometimes the desire to be lost again, as long ago, comes over me like a vapor. With growth into adulthood, responsibilities claimed me, so many heavy coats. I didn’t choose them, I don’t fault them, but it took time to reject them. Now in the spring I kneel, I put my face into the packets of violets, the dampness, the freshness, the sense of ever-ness. Something is wrong, I know it, if I don’t keep my attention on eternity. May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful. May I stay forever in the stream. May I look down upon the windflower and the bull thistle and the coreopsis with the greatest respect.”
― Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays

“2-1-10:
A languid Sunday, afternoon turned into evening, evening into night, night into morning.
'I just want to enjoy your nextness and nearness,' O says.
He puts his ear to my chest and listens to my heart and counts the beats.
'Sixty-two,' he says with a satisfied smile, and I can't imagine anything more intimate.”
― Bill Hayes, Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me

“To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.”
― Mark Twain