It isn't a circle--it is simply a long line--as in geometry, you know, one that reaches into infinity. And because we cannot see the end--we also cannot see how it changes. And it is very odd by those who see the changes--who dream, who will not give up--are called idealists...and those who see only the circle we call them the "realists"!

The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.

One cannot live with sighted eyes and feeling heart and not know and read of the miseries which affect the world.

Though it be a thrilling and marvellous thing to be merely young and gifted in such times, it is doubly so - doubly dynamic - to be young, gifted and black.

It is difficult for the American mind to adjust to the realization that the Rhetts and the Scarletts were as much monsters as the keepers of Buchenwald-they just dressed more attractively.

I look at you and I see the final triumph of stupidity in the world!

American straightforwardness is almost as disarming as Americans invariably think it is.