The Harlem of my books was never meant to be real; I never called it real; I just wanted to take it away from the white man if only in my books.

It seemed so illogical to punish some poor criminal for doing something that civilization taught him how to do so he could have something that civilization taught him how to want. It seemed to him as wrong as if they had hung the gun that shot the man.

If one lives in a country where racism is held valid and practiced in all ways of life eventually, no matter whether one is a racist or a victim, one comes to feel the absurdity of life....Racism generated from whites is first of all absurd. Racism creates absurdity among blacks as a defense mechanism.

I grew to manhood in the Ohio State Penitentiary.

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.

The Harlem of my books was never meant to be real; I never called it real; I just wanted to take it away from the white man if only in my books.

I would sit in my room and become hysterical about the wild incredible story I was writing. And I thought I was writing realism. It never occurred to me that I was writing absurdity. Realism and absurdity are so similar in the lives of American blacks one cannot tell the difference.