Nietzsche said without music, life would be a mistake. To me, without books, life would be a mistake.

The artist must be like a heart surgeon. He must approach something with sympathy, but with a sort of coldness and work and work until he finds some kind of perfection in his work. You can't have blood splashing all over the place. Things must be done very cleanly.

Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?

Now, about that mulatto teacher and me. There was no love there for each other. There was not even respect. We were enemies if anything. He hated me, and I knew it, and he knew I knew it. I didn't like him, but I needed him, needed him to tell me something that none of the others could or would.

...my heart may have been in it but my soul was not.

I have no more to say except this: We must live with our own conscience.

When I'm sitting in the church alone, I can hear singing of the old people. I can hear their singing and I can hear their praying, and sometimes I hum one of their songs.