As you know from reading many of these Negro writers, we don't deal too much with the discussion of democracy and what it means and how improvisation fits in all that.

Louis Armstrong, who learned to be in exquisite dress, came from the bottom, and he's not a trash can.

When people conclude that all is futile, then the absurd becomes the norm.

You must be willing to accept the fact that pain is a part of the process of revelation.

Our democratic richness arrives when we're able to comprehend our collective humanity accurately.

The grand irony, however, is that Southern segregation was not brought to an end, nor redneck violence dramatically reduced, by violence.

If there's an intellectual highway, there's also an intellectual subway.