It's so hard to say what you really mean. For any number of reasons: to protect yourself, or if you just can't find the words.
Paul BeattyI 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.
Paul BeattyI 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.
Paul BeattyPeople are very comfortable when race relations get looked at retrospectively. Slavery, the civil rights movement, etc.
Paul BeattyI 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.
Paul BeattyIn White Boy Shuffle, I combined my seventh-grade teacher, Mr. Takemoto, who really saved me - I don't think I've ever told anyone this - and my first basketball coach, Mr. Shimizu, into one character. Something about the way they talked about things, and their attitudes, had a huge impact on me. Not that I necessarily agreed with them. It was important to me to just put them there to stay grounded.
Paul Beatty