We cannot discuss the state of our minorities until we first have a sense of what we are, who we are, what our goals are, and what we take life to be.

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

The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.

I often wonder what I'd do if there weren't any books in the world.

You have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.

People who have been wronged will attempt to right the wrong; they would not be people if they didn't. They can rarely afford to be scrupulous about the means they will use. They will use such means as come to hand. Neither, in the main, will they distinguish one oppressor from another, nor see through to the root principle of their oppression.

European society has always been divided into classes in a way that American society never has been. A European writer considers himself to be part of an old and honorable tradition--of intellectual activity, of letters--and his choice of a vocation does not cause him any uneasy wonder as to whether or not it will cost him all his friends. But this tradition does not exist in America.