Martyrs are needed to create incidents. Incidents are needed to create revolutions. Revolutions are needed to create progress.

American violence is public life, it's a public way of life, it became a form, a detective story form. So I should think that any number of black writers should go into the detective story form.

I grew to manhood in the Ohio State Penitentiary.

Man cannot live without some knowledge of the purpose of life. If he can find no purpose in life he creates one in the inevitability of death.

Democracy is not tolerance. Democracy is a prescribed way of life erected on the premise that all men are created equal.

There is an indomitable quality within the human spirit that cannot be destroyed; a face deep within the human personality that is impregnable to all assaults.

Our highest ambition is to be included in the stream of American life, to be permitted to "play the game" as any other American; and is opposed to anything that aids in the exclusion; the face may be Africa, but the heart has the beat of Wall Street.