What could I dream of that had the barest possibility of coming true? I could think of nothing. And, slowly, it was upon exactly that nothingness that my mind began to dwell, that constant sense of wanting without having, of being hated without reason.

Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.

there are times when life's ends are so raveled that reason and sense cry out that we stop and gather them together again before we can proceed

Make up your mind, Snail! You are half inside your house, And halfway out!

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 was not leaving the south to forget the south, but so that some day I might understand it

I knew that I lived in a country in which the aspirations of black people were limited, marked-off. Yet I felt that I had to go somewhere and do something to redeem my being alive.