The mark of fear is not easily removed.

We all have much more in common than we have difference. I would say that about people all over the world. They don't know how much in common that they have

He told us that most of us would die violently, and those who did not would be brought down to the level of beasts.

The sharecropper may lower his eyes, but not because he's less of a man. That's just a condition of society that such things exist.

I have learned as much about writing about my people by listening to blues and jazz and spirituals as I have by reading novels.

All writers write about the past, and I try to make it come alive so you can see what happened.

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.