To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity.

It comes as a great shock…to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance…has not pledged allegiance to you. It comes as a great shock to see Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, and although you are rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians are you.

A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled.

When the book comes out it may hurt you - but in order for me to do it, it had to hurt me first. I can only tell you about yourself as much as I can face about myself.

No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.

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.

Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person - ask the wretched how they fare in the halls of justice, and then you will know, not whether or not the country is just, but whether or not it has any love for justice, or any concept of it. It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.