I wasn't aware of Ku Klux Klan as I was aware of the widespread assumption that African-Americans were dumber than white people. I think my father believed that. I think everybody white did.

If somebody says, "I love you," to me, I feel as though I had a pistol pointed at my head. What can anybody reply under such conditions but that which the pistol-holder requires? "I love you, too."

How embarrassing it is to be human.

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.

Thank God for novelists. Thank God there are people willing to write everything down. Otherwise, so much would be forgotten.

Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but the living room in your fortified compound.