One avoids Creolisms. Some families completely forbid Creole and mothers ridicule their children for speaking it.

For a colonized people the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land: the land which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity.

I want the world to recognize with me the open door of every consciousness

Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.

In the World through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself.

Introducing someone as a "Negro poet with a University degree" or again, quite simply, the expression, "a great black poet." These ready-made phrases, which seem in a common-sense way to fill a need-or have a hidden subtlety, a permanent rub.

Zombies, believe me, are more terrifying than colonists.