That was the moment he got the idea he possessed me in a certain way, and that was the moment I grew tired of him.

The strange thing about my life is that I came to America at about the time when racial attitudes were changing. This was a big help to me. Also, the people who were most cruel to me when I first came to America were black Americans. They made absolute fun of the way I talked, the way I dressed. I couldn't dance. The people who were most kind and loving to me were white people. So what can one make of that? Perhaps it was a coincidence that all the people who found me strange were black and all the people who didn't were white.

I was given a dictionary when I was seven, and I read it because I had nothing else to read. I read it the way you read a book.

Express everything you like. No word can hurt you. None. No idea can hurt you. Not being able to express an idea or word will hurt you more. Like a bullet.

That was the moment he got the idea he possessed me in a certain way, and that was the moment I grew tired of him.

I've come to see that I'm saying something that people generally do not want to hear.

Every native of every place is a potential tourist, and every tourist is a native of somewhere. Every native everywhere lives a life of overwhelming and crushing banality and boredom and desperation and depression, and every deed, good and bad, is an attempt to forget this.