The last time you were happy about nothing; the first time you were afraid about nothing. Which came first?
I like shape very much. A novel has to have shape, and life doesn't have any.
Every word I say has chains round its ankles; every thought I think is weighted with heavy weights.
...morbidly, attracted him to strangeness, to recklessnesss, even unhappiness.
They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did.
And I saw that all my life I had known that this was going to happen, and that I'd been afraid for a long time, I'd been afraid for a long time. There's fear, of course, with everybody. But now it had grown, it had grown gigantic; it filled me and it filled the whole world.