Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?

The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.

We cannot discuss the state of our minorities until we first have some sense of what we are, who we are, what our goals are, and what we take life to be. The question is not what we can do now for the hypothetical Mexican, the hypothetical Negro. The question is what we really want out of life, for ourselves, what we think is real.

Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice, that they're better than other human beings.

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

Most of us are about as eager to change as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock.

Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.