There will always be men struggling to change, and there will always be those who are controlled by the past.

I knew I wanted to be a writer and I knew if I had a wife and family, I would neglect something, and I was afraid it wouldn't be the writing.

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.

But let us say he was (guilty). Let us for a moment say he was (guilty). What justice would there be to take his life? Justice, gentlemen? Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this.

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

I want you to show them the difference between what they think you are and what you can be.

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.