An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.

One day, to everyone’s astonishment, someone drops a match in the powder keg and everything blows up.

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.

We cannot discuss the state of our minorities until we first have a sense of what we are, who we are, what our goals are, and what we take life to be.

There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.

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

A real writer is always shifting and changing and searching.