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

Only when the mind is free has the body a chance to be free. Yes, they must believe, they must believe. Because I know what it means to be a slave. I am a slave.

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

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.

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

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

We wait till now? Now, when we're old men, we get to be brave?