Art is a weapon in the struggle of ideas, the class struggle.

When I die, the consciousness I carry I will to black people. May they pick me apart and take the useful parts, the sweet meat of my feelings. And leave the bitter bullshit rotten white parts alone.

If you are black, the only roads into the mainland of American life are through subservience, cowardice, and loss of manhood. These are the white man's roads.

from the slave ship to the citizenship we faced a lot of bullship

I am inside someone who hates me. I look out from his eyes.

A rich man told me recently that a liberal is a man who tells other people what to do with their money.

I guess I was the most unbohemian of all bohemians. My bohemianism consisted of not wanting to get involved with the stupid stuff that I thought people wanted you to get involved with - ... namely America... Dwight Eisenhower, McCarthyism and all those great things.