Two great areas of deafness existed in the South: White Southerners had no ears to hear that which threatened their Dream. And colored Southerners had none to hear that which could reduce their anger.

When we lose love, we lose also our identification with the universe and with eternal values--an identification which alone makesit possible for us to lay our lives on the altar for what we believe.

A man's real and deep feelings are surely those which he acts upon when challenged, not those which, mellow-eyed and soft-voiced, he spouts in easy times.

... the constructive power of an image is not measured in terms of its truth, but of the love it inspires.

The importance of a lost romantic vision should not be underestimated. In such a vision is power as well as joy. In it is meaning.Life is flat, barren, zestless, if one can find one's lost vision nowhere.

... most Southerners of my parents' era were raised to feel that it wasn't respectable to be rich. We felt that all patriotic Southerners had lost everything in defense of the South, and sufficient time hadn't elapsed for respectable rebuilding of financial security in a war- impoverished region.

I have known no experience more distressing than the discovery that Negroes didn't love me. Unutterable loneliness claimed me. I felt without roots, like a man without a country.