Just try to be yourself and resist complacency and ignorance. All you can do is work, work; work and be disciplined.

The role James Baldwin played in my life is incommensurable as stated above. He helped, along with a few others, to shape the man that I am today. My debt to him is invaluable.

You need to react. That's the absurdity of Twitter. You can react without thinking now.

I started to read James Baldwin very early on in my life. At a time, as a young adult in the Sixties, when there were not that many authors in whom I could recognize myself, he was an important guide and mentor to me as he was to many others. He helped me understand who I was and decipher the world around me. He gave me the words to defend myself and the argumentative rhetoric to master discussions with others.

Over the years, he disappeared - like a lot of our leaders disappear. [James Baldwin] was not assassinated, but somehow he went through those assassinations as if it was himself. I think that broke him as well.

[James] Baldwin explained that you have your own history, and that you cannot be responsible, for example, for slavery.

[James] Baldwin is needed even more today because he helps you focus to the essential, to what is important.