Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did.

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

American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.

Even the most incorrigible maverick has to be born somewhere. He may leave the group that produced him-he may be forced to-but nothing will efface his origins, the marks of which he carries with him everywhere. I think it is important to know this and even find it a matter for rejoicing, as the strongest people do, regardless of their station. On this acceptance, literally, the life of a writer depends.

The poet or the revolutionary is there to articulate the necessity, but until the people themselves apprehend it, nothing can happen ... Perhaps it can't be done without the poet, but it certainly can't be done without the people. The poet and the people get on generally very badly, and yet they need each other. The poet knows it sooner than the people do. The people usually know it after the poet is dead; but that's all right. The point is to get your work done, and your work is to change the world.

One day, to everyone’s astonishment, someone drops a match in the powder keg and everything blows up.

If one cannot risk oneself, then one is simply incapable of giving. And, after all, one can give freedom only by setting someone free.