Love grows from stable relationships, shared experience, loyalty, devotion, trust.

If a man confessed anything on his death bed, it was the truth; for no man could stare death in the face and lie.

Violence is a personal necessity for the oppressed...It is not a strategy consciously devised. It is the deep, instinctive expression of a human being denied individuality.

I did not know if the story was factually true or not, but it was emotionally true [...].

It had been only through books-at best, no more than vicarious cultural transfusions-that I had managaed to keep myself alive in a negatively vital way. Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books.

Pity can purge us of hostility and arouse feelings of identification with the characters, but it can also be a consoling reassurance which leads us to believe that we have understood, and that, in pitying, we have even done something to right a wrong.

But the color of a Negro's skin makes him easily recognizable, makes him suspect, converts him into a defenseless target