And I was yet aware that this was only a moment, that the world waited outside, as hungry as a tiger, and that trouble stretched above us, longer than the sky.

The moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

We can make America what America must become.

It must be remembered that in those great days I was considered to be an "integrationist" - this was never, quite, my own idea of myself - and Malcolm was considered to be a "racist in reverse." This formulation, in terms of power - and power is the arena in which racism is acted out - means absolutely nothing: it may even be described as a cowardly formulation. The powerless, by definition, can never be "racists," for they can never make the world pay for what they feel or fear except by the suicidal endeavor which makes them fanatics or revolutionaries, or both.

The writer's only real task: to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art

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

I am aware that no man is a villain in his own eyes.