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John Brown First Swam Into My Vision In The 1960s When I Was A Political Activist In The Civil Rights Movement And The Anti-war Movement At Chapel Hill, Where I Went To University.

I Began As A Boy With Artistic Talent... As A Visual Artist... I Thought That Was What I'd Become And In My Late Teens Drifted Into Reading Serious Literature.

It Was Strange To Stand There In Front Of The Mirror And See Myself Like I Was My Own Best Friend, A Kid Wanted To Hang With Forever. This Was A Boy I Could Travel To The Seacoasts With, A Boy I'd Like To Meet Up With In Foreign Cities Like Calcutta And London And Brazil, A Boy I Could Trust Who Also Had A Good Sense Of Humor And Liked Smoked Oysters From A Can And Good Weed And The Occasional 40 Ounces Of Malt. If I Was Going To Be Alone For The Rest Of My Life This Was The Person I Wanted To Be Alone With.

I Am Not A Ventriloquist.

We Are The Planet, Fully As Much As Water, Earth, Fire And Air Are The Planet, And If The Planet Survives, It Will Only Be Through Heroism. Not Occasional Heroism, A Remarkable Instance Of It Here And There, But Constant Heroism, Systematic Heroism, Heroism As Governing Principle.