The Water Dancer

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I was young and love to me was a fuse that was lit, not a garden that was grown. Love was not concerned with any deep knowledge of its object, of their wants and dreams, but mainly with the joy felt in their presence and the sickness felt in their departure.

“And some of us have been down since the days of Rome. Some of us are born into society and told that knowledge is rightfully beyond us, and ornamental ignorance should be our whole aspiration.”

“The mind of woman is weak—this was the word, you see. But now they say that any and all who would aspire to the rank of lady must have some touch of the book. But not too much. No hard study. Nothing that might injure the delicate and girlish mind. Novels. Tales. Proverbs, that sort of thing. No papers. No politics.”