Hatred is always self hatred, and there is something suicidal about it.

When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.

Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety.

You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way... people look at reality, then you can change it.

You go into a book and you're in the dark, really. You go in with a certain fear and trembling. You know one thing. You know you will not be the same person when this voyage is over. But you don't know what's going to happen to you between getting on the boat and stepping off.

I started reading. I read everything I could get my hands on...By the time I was thirteen I had read myself out of Harlem. I had read every book in two libraries and had a card for the Forty-Second Street branch.

The interior life is a real life, and the intangible dreams of people have a tangible effect on the world.