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.

When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway.

An identity is questioned only when it is menaced, as when the mighty begin to fall, or when the wretched begin to rise, or when the stranger enters the gates, never, thereafter, to be a stranger.

The determination to outwit one's situation means that one has no models, only object lessons.

Rage can only with difficulty, and never entirely, be brought under the domination of the intelligence, and therefore is not susceptible to any arguments whatsoever.

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

The white man discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the black man discovered the Bible by way of the Cross.