The relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others in order to end the racial nightmare and acheive our country.

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

And I was yet aware that this was only a moment, that the world waited outside, as hungry as a tiger, and that trouble stretched above us, longer than the sky.

Sometimes you hear a person speak the truth and you know that they are speaking the truth. But you also know that they have not heard themselves, do not know what they have said: do not know that they have revealed much more than they have said. This may be why the truth remains, on the whole, so rare.

Because I was raised in a Christian culture I never considered myself to be a totally free human being.

It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

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