We all commit our crimes. The thing is to not lie about them -- to try to understand what you have done, why you have done it. That way, you can begin to forgive yourself. That's very important. If you don't forgive yourself you'll never be able to forgive anybody else and you'll go on committing the same crimes forever.

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.

The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.

The male cannot bear very much humiliation; and he really cannot bear it, it obliterates him.

We all commit our crimes. The thing is to not lie about them -- to try to understand what you have done, why you have done it. That way, you can begin to forgive yourself. That's very important. If you don't forgive yourself you'll never be able to forgive anybody else and you'll go on committing the same crimes forever.

There is something terribly radical about believing that one's own experience and images are important enough to speak about, much less to write about and to perform