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.

You're getting to be a big boy,' I said desperately, 'it's time you started thinking about your future.' 'I'm thinking about my future,' said Sonny, grimly. 'I think about it all the time.

A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled.

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.

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

I don't know, now, when I first looked at Hella and found her stale, found her body uninteresting, her presence grating. It seemed to happen all at once—I suppose that only means that it had been happening for a long time.

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