The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.

Then I buckled up my shoes, and I started.

A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven.

At four o'clock in the morning, when everyone is drunk enough, then extraordinary things can happen.

I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverized by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one's own moral center and move through the world hoping that this center will guide one aright.

Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such as are given for heroism on the field of battle.

My friend was about to introduce me when she looked at me and smiled and said, "Whose little boy are you?"