Between the World and Me (One World Essentials)

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free.

There was before you, and then there was after, and in this after, you were the God I’d never had. I submitted before your needs, and I knew then that I must survive for something more than survival’s sake. I must survive for you.