We believe that an individual must endeavor to assume the universalism inherent in the human condition.

Today I believe in the possibility of love; that is why I endeavor to trace its imperfections, its perversions.

I feel my soul as vast as the world, truly a soul as deep as the deepest of rivers; my chest has the power to expand to infinity. I was made to give and they prescribe for me the humility of the cripple.

Culture has never the translucidity of custom; it abhors all simplification. In its essence it is opposed to custom, for custom is always the deterioration of culture.

[Educated blacks] Society refuses to consider them genuine Negroes. The Negro is a savage, whereas the student is civilized. "You're us," and if anyone thinks you are a Negro he is mistaken, because you merely look like one.

Mastery of language affords remarkable power.

The business of obscuring language is a mask behind which stands the much bigger business of plunder.