To defend oneself against a fear is simply to insure that one will, one day, be conquered by it; fears must be faced.

The American ideal of sexuality appears to be rooted in the American ideal of masculinity. This idea has created cowboys and Indians, good guys and bad guys, punks and studs, tough guys and softies, butch and faggot, black and white. It is an ideal so paralytically infantile that it is virtually forbidden - as an unpatriotic act - that the American boy evolve into the complexity of manhood

A liberal: someone who thinks he knows more about your experience than you do.

I'm not interested in anybody's guilt. Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford. I know you didn't do it, and I didn't do it either, but I am responsible for it because I am a man and a citizen of this country and you are responsible for it, too, for the very same reason... Anyone who is trying to be conscious must begin to dismiss the vocabulary which we've used so long to cover it up, to lie about the way things are.

People can cry much easier than they can change, a rule of psychology people like me picked up as kids on the street.

It is perfectly possible to be enamoured of Paris while remaining totally indifferent or even hostile to the French.

The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others.