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.

When you get to mixing sex and religion, it will make anybody crazy.

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.

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.

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

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.

I grew to manhood in the Ohio State Penitentiary.