The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

Confusion is a luxury which only the very, very young can possibly afford and you are not that young anymore

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.

In the invincible and indescribable squalor of Harlem ... I was tormented. I felt caged, like an animal. I wanted to escape. I felt if I did not get out I would slowly strangle.

In order to have a conversation with someone you must reveal yourself.

If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected - those, precisely, who need the law's protection most! - and listens to their testimony.

It is rare indeed that people give. Most people guard and keep; they suppose that it is they themselves and what they identify with themselves that they are guarding and keeping, whereas what they are actually guarding and keeping is their system of reality and what they assume themselves to be.