James Baldwin

All I really remember is the pain, the unspeakable pain ; it was as though I were yelling up to Heaven and Heaven would not hear me. And if Heaven would not hear me, if love would not descend from Heaven ― to wash me, to make me clean ― then utter disaster was my portion. Yes, it does indeed mean something ― something unspeakable ― to be born, in a white country, an Anglo-Teutonic, antisexual country, black. You very soon, without knowing it, give up all hope of communion. Black people, mainly, look down or look up but do not look at each other, not at you, and white people, mainly, look away. And the universe is simply a sounding drum ; there is no way whatever, so it seemed then and has sometimes seemed since, to get through a life, to love your wife and children, or your friends, or your mother and father, or to be loved.