Oh, the holiness of always being the injured party. The historically oppressed can find not only sanctity but safety in the stateof victimization. When access to a better life has been denied often enough, and successfully enough, one can use the rejection as an excuse to cease all efforts. After all, one reckons, "they" don't want me, "they" accept their own mediocrity and refuse my best, "they" don't deserve me.

We must create a climate where people agree that human beings are more alike than unalike. The only way to do that is through education.

I'm grateful to intelligent people. That doesn't mean educated. That doesn't mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old people used to call 'mother wit' means intelligence that you had in your mother's womb. That's what you rely on. You know what's right to do.

We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.

In order to be profoundly dishonest, a person must have one of two qualities: either he is unscrupulously ambitious, or he is unswervingly egocentric.

I get up in the morning, and I'm reluctant to turn on the television.