. . . I write to keep in contact with our ancestors and to spread truth to people.
The artist must bow to the monster of his own imagination.
Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.
Our too-young and too-new America, lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad, the holy and the evil, the high and the low, the white and the black; our America is frightened of fact, of history, of processes, of necessity. It hugs the easy way of damning those whom it cannot understand, of excluding those who look different, and it salves its conscience with a self-draped cloak of righteousness
Reading was like a drug, a dope. The novels created moods in which I lived for days.
They hate because they fear, and they fear because they feel that the deepest feelings of their lives are being assaulted and outraged. And they do not know why; they are powerless pawns in a blind play of social forces.
But the color of a Negro's skin makes him easily recognizable, makes him suspect, converts him into a defenseless target
Love is always enough.
The main goal of the future is to stop violence. The world is addicted to it.
Oh God, I'm awful at sports. In gym I just try and avoid getting hit in the face.
To be defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest on one's laurels, is defeat.