Color is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality.

But the relationship of morality and power is a very subtle one. Because ultimately power without morality is no longer power.

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

The greatest significance of the present student generation is that it is through them that the point of view of the subjugated is finally and inexorably being expressed.

In order to have a conversation with someone you must reveal yourself.

Education is indoctrination if you're white - subjugation if you're black.

I remember standing on a street corner with the black painter Beauford Delaney down in the Village, waiting for the light to change, and he pointed down and said, 'Look.' I looked and all I saw was water. And he said, 'Look again,' which I did, and I saw oil on the water and the city reflected in the puddle. It was a great revelation to me. I can't explain it. He taught me how to see, and how to trust what I saw. Painters have often taught writers how to see. And once you've had that experience, you see differently.