We wander, question. But the answer waits in each separate heart - the answer of our own identity and the way by which we can master loneliness and feel that at last we belong.

What are the sources of an illumination? To me, they come after hours of searching and keeping my soul ready. Yet they come in a flash, as a religious phenomenon. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter had such an illumination, beginning my long search for the truth of the story and flashing light into the long two years ahead.

For in a swift radiance of illumination he saw a glimpse of human struggle and valor. Of the endless fluid passage of the humanity through endless time. And of those who labor and of those who - one word- love. His soul expanded. But for a moment only. For in him, he felt a warning, a shaft of terror.

Comparing the Brooklyn that I know with Manhattan is like comparing a comfortable and complacent duenna to her more brilliant and neurotic sister.

The human heart is a lonely hunter-but the search for us southerners is more anguished.

A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lillies of the swamp.

It was better to be in a jail where you could bang the walls than in a jail you could not see.