Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.

It is perfectly possible to be enamoured of Paris while remaining totally indifferent or even hostile to the French.

But it was not the room’s disorder which was frightening; it was the fact that when one began searching for the key to this disorder, one realized that it was not to be found in any of the usual places. For this was not a matter of habit or circumstance or temperament; it was a matter of punishment and grief.

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

You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way... people look at reality, then you can change it.

People don't have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love. Then, when you're dead, when they've killed you by what they made you go through, they say you didn't have any character. They weep big, bitter tears - not for you. For themselves, because they've lost their toy.

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