A writer has to take all the risks of putting down what he sees. No one can tell him about that. No one can control that reality. It reminds me of something Pablo Picasso was supposed to have said to Gertrude Stein while he was painting her portrait. Gertrude said, “I don’t look like that.” And Picasso replied, “You will.” And he was right.

If you're afraid to die, you will not be able to live.

A ghetto can be improved in one way only: out of existence.

People who have been wronged will attempt to right the wrong; they would not be people if they didn't. They can rarely afford to be scrupulous about the means they will use. They will use such means as come to hand. Neither, in the main, will they distinguish one oppressor from another, nor see through to the root principle of their oppression.

There is something terribly radical about believing that one's own experience and images are important enough to speak about, much less to write about and to perform

It is very nearly impossible... to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.

Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did.