Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.

An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.

He may be a very nice man. But I haven't got the time to figure that out. All I know is, he's got a uniform and a gun and I have to relate to him that way. That's the only way to relate to him because one of us may have to die.

One cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one's own.

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.

There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that *they* must accept *you*. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love.

People can cry much easier than they can change.