Is that what they call a vocation, what you do with joy as if you had fire in your heart, the devil in your body?

Let us stop saying 'white Americans' and 'colored Americans,' let us try once and for all saying... Americans. Let human beings be equal on Earth as in Heaven.

I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too.

I ran away from St. Louis, and then I ran away from the United States, because of that terror of discrimination.

Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one's soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.

You must get an education. You must go to school, and you must learn to protect yourself. And you must learn to protect yourself with the pen, and not the gun.

I have two loves: my country and Paris.