An American Negro, however deep his sympathies, or however bright his rage, ceases to be simply a black man when he faces a black man from Africa.

People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.

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

The relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others in order to end the racial nightmare and acheive our country.

What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one's heroic ancestors.

At four o'clock in the morning, when everyone is drunk enough, then extraordinary things can happen.

People can't, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life.