“I found myself obliged, through perhaps unique circumstances, to devote myself to my mathematical research, almost without help, advice or even books… Endlessly occupied by a thousand different matters and constrained my state duties, it is the work of an engineer that I herewith present and not the fruit of the meditations of a savant.”

Je veux qu'on me voit en ma façon simple, naturelle, et ordinaire, sans étude et artifice; car c'est moi que je peins...Je suis moi-même la matière de mon livre.
Book I (1580), To the Reader
Essais (1595), Book I

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 152

for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (1976)
Variant: i found god in myself
& i loved her/i loved her fiercely

Breakfast of Champions (1973)
Context: This book is my fiftieth-birthday present to myself. I feel as though I am crossing the spine of a roof — having ascended one slope.
I am programmed at fifty to perform childishly — to insult “The Star-Spangled Banner,” to scrawl pictures of a Nazi flag and an asshole and a lot of other things with a felt-tipped pen. To give an idea of the maturity of my illustrations for this book, here is my picture of an asshole: