There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention.

Society is held together by our need; we bind it together with legend, myth, coercion, fearing that without it we will be hurled into that void, within which, like the earth before the Word was spoken, the foundations of society are hidden.

For nothing is fixed, forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

Education is indoctrination if you're white - subjugation if you're black.

You've got to tell the world how to treat you. If the world tells you how you are going to be treated, you are in trouble.

The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.