I think that the glorious thing about the human race is that it does change the world -- constantly. The world or 'life' may seem to more often overwhelm the human being's capacity for struggling against being overwhelmed which is remarkable and exhilarating.

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.

Our Southside is a place apart: each piece of our living is a protest.

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

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

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"!

...Negroes must concern themselves with every single means of struggle: legal, illegal, passive, active, violent and non- violent.... They must harass, debate, petition, boycott, sing hymns, pray on steps--and shoot from their windows when the racists come cruising through their communities.... The acceptance of our condition is the only form of extremism which discredits us before our children [ellipses in source].