It's not the suffering of birth, death, love that the young reject, but the suffering of endless labor without dream, eating the spare bread in bitterness, being a slave without the security of a slave.

The history of an oppressed people is hidden in the lies and the agreed myth of its conquerors.

To be bound by hungers is a beautiful thing but to be bound by physical hungers only is too low a state for man.

Writing is primarily a sensuous and creative expression of life.

The people always know that some of the grain will be good, some of the crop will be saved, some will return and bear the strength of the kernel, that from the bloodiest year some survive to outfox the frost.

A good civilization gives the greatest possible scope to the common passions and makes them intelligible among the great number of people.

Suddenly many movements are going on within me, many things are happening, there is an almost unbearable sense of sprouting, of bursting encasements, of moving kernels, expanding flesh.