The American ideal is, after all, that everyone should be as much alike as possible.

People can cry much easier than they can change, a rule of psychology people like me picked up as kids on the street.

You have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.

This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again.

A civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.

I must oppose any attempt that Negroes may make to do to others what has been done to them. . . . I know the spiritual wasteland to which that road leads . . . whoever debases others is debasing himself.

Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.