Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.

You have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.

Writing is a political instrument.

You write in order to change the world.

I am aware that no man is a villain in his own eyes.

The real victim of bigotry is the white man who hides his weakness under his myth of superiority.

I was in his hands, he called me by the thunder at my ear. I was in his hands: I was being changed; all that I could do was cling to him. I did not realize, until I realized it, that I was also kissing him, that everything was breaking and changing and turning in me and moving toward him.