Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.

Allegiance, after all, has to work two ways; and one can grow weary of an allegiance which is not reciprocal.

The impossible is the least that one can demand.

It is impossible to pretend that you are not heir to, and therefore, however inadequately or unwillingly, responsible to, and for, the time and place that give you life -- without becoming, at very best, a dangerously disoriented human being.

I started reading. I read everything I could get my hands on...By the time I was thirteen I had read myself out of Harlem. I had read every book in two libraries and had a card for the Forty-Second Street branch.

For nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.

Love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters?