Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be

The past is what makes the present coherent, and the past will remain horrible for exactly as long as we refuse to assess it honestly.

It seems to be typical of life in America ... that the second generation has no time to talk to the first.

We are responsible for the world in which we find ourselves, if only because we are the only sentient force which can change it.

He leaned up a little and watched her face. Her face would now be, forever, more mysterious and impenetrable than the face of any stranger. Strangers' faces hold no secrets because the imagination does not invest them with any. But the face of a lover is an unknown precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment.

It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

The moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.