The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did - which was to hide.

People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception.

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

A writer has to take all the risks of putting down what he sees. No one can tell him about that. No one can control that reality. It reminds me of something Pablo Picasso was supposed to have said to Gertrude Stein while he was painting her portrait. Gertrude said, “I don’t look like that.” And Picasso replied, “You will.” And he was right.

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did - which was to hide.

Allegiance, after all, has to work two ways; and one can grow weary of an allegiance which is not reciprocal.

Whoever is born in New York is ill-equipped to deal with any other city: all other cities seem, at best, a mistake, and, at worst, a fraud. No other city is so spitefully incoherent.