A civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.

When Americans look out on the world, they see nothing but dark and menacing strangers who appear to have no sense of rhythm at all, nor any respect or affection for white people; and white Americans really do not know what to make of all this, except to increase the defense budget.

Negro servants have been smuggling odds and ends out of white homes for generations, and white people have been delighted to have them do it, because it has assuaged a dim guilt and testified to the intrinsic superiority of white people.

To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity.

It was as though we were a picture, trapped in time: this had been happening for hundreds of years, people sitting in a room, waiting for dinner, and listening to the blues.

Everything in life depends on how that life accepts its limits.

If one cannot risk oneself, then one is simply incapable of giving. And, after all, one can give freedom only by setting someone free.