You don’t have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back.

Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must always seem untimely.

America sometimes resembles, at least from the point of view of a black man, an exceedingly monotonous minstrel show; the same dances, same music, same jokes. One has done (or been) the show so long that one can do it in one’s own sleep.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone.

People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction.

A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled.

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.