To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

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

It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate.

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

She was twenty and had come to realize that, though she had a voice, she wasn't a singer; that to endure and embrace the life of a singer demands a whole lot more than a voice.

You don’t have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back.

I often wonder what I'd do if there weren't any books in the world.