I was dreaming … about my grandfather. A very old man, at least as old as I am now, 91. I thought, when I was a boy, that he had been 91 all his life. Now I feel as if I have been 91 all my life.
I was seven years old. What do you know when you’re seven years old? All my life, or so I thought, we’d been in the city of Alexandria, in the Street of the Carpenters, with the other Galileans, and sooner or later we were going home.
In my life I've been through plenty. when I was three years old, my parents got a dog. I was jealous of the dog, so they got rid of me.
I think about my father being called 'boy,' my uncle being called 'boy,' my brother, coming back from Vietnam and being called 'boy.' So I questioned myself: 'What does a black man have to do before he's given the respect as a man?' So when I was 18 years old, when I was old enough to fight and die for my country, old enough to drink, old enough to vote, I said I was old enough to be called a man. I self-ordained myself Mr. T so the first word out of everybody's mouth is 'Mr.
I think what he went through as a child was very heavy. He never got over his mother leaving his father, and following her mother to Florida, to an area that was very different, and losing his father. When he was seven years old, this was a very sensitive boy, who was wide-eyed and trusting, and not knowing how to protect himself at all.
I was 'colored' until I was 14, a Negro until I was 21 and a black man ever since.
I lost my father when I was 13-years-old. He was a great man, my father, and very intelligent. I love him very much. I believe it's very important that parents have a personal connection with their children. It helps kids feel more secure, have a feeling of family, makes them feel loved.
I left Cuba when I was two years old. They took away my country, they stole the most intimate thing a human being can have. How could I forget that Fidel Castro was the person who did me so much harm?
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
I must be driven. I figured that as long as I had to stay out there I ought to keep scouting around. Working in my sleep. Ought to have the Old Man double my pay. How much is two times a stab in the back?