That's what happens with writing. Ingredients bubble and cook. Material becomes substance.

The anti-blackness has generated new forms of youth involvement in anti-whiteness, which in some cases is appalling.

I can't feel Irish to save my soul, but it's a fact.

I certainly wasn't seeking any degree, the way a college confers a status symbol upon its students. My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America. Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me, asking questions. One was, "What's your alma mater?" I told him, "Books.

Never completely encircle your enemy. Leave him some escape, for he will fight even more desperately if trapped.

My parents were teachers and they went out of their way to see to it that I had books. We grew up in a home that was full of books. And so I learned to read. I loved to read.

Every death is like the burning of a library.