Every social war is a battle between the very few on both sides who care and who fire their shots across a crowd of spectators.

The beauty of a strong, lasting commitment is often best understood by a man incapable of it.

We are all addicts in various stages of degradation where I live on the Upper West Side, some to heroin, some to small dogs, and some to the New York Times. The heroin is cut, the dogs are paranoid, and the Times cheats by skimping on the West Coast ball scores. No matter, each of us goes upon the street solely in pursuit of his own particular curse.

Every social war is a battle between the very few on both sides who care and who fire their shots across a crowd of spectators.

No great scoundrel is ever uninteresting.

It is a measure of the Negro's circumstance that, in America, the smallest things usually take him so very long, and that, by the time he wins them, they are no longer little things: they are miracles.

To say that an idea is fashionable is to say, I think, that is has been adulterated to a point where it is hardly an idea at all.