I was guilty and irritated and full of love and pain. I wanted to kick him and I wanted to take him in my arms.

It is hard for anyone under twenty to realise that death has already assigned them a number, which is going to come up one day.

For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness.

The place in which I'll fit will not exist until I make it.

The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions.

This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again.

It is impossible to pretend that you are not heir to, and therefore, however inadequately or unwillingly, responsible to, and for, the time and place that give you life -- without becoming, at very best, a dangerously disoriented human being.