All over Harlem, Negro boys and girls are growing into stunted maturity, trying desperately to find a place to stand; and the wonder is not that so many are ruined but that so many survive.

The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he or she has become a threat.

Experience, which destroys innocence, also leads one back to it.

Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.

When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway.

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

When you're writing you're trying to find out something which you don't know.