Everybody has to be reminded that there's another way to be. Another more mysterious, unpredictable way to be that's not necessarily based upon contrivances.

In America, we have to learn to be patient enough to figure out what somebody is saying. Somebody might actually be saying something.

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.

Big business, for all its lobbying, is often put in line by investigative reporting, public scandals and multi-million-dollar judgments in court against those who put products on the market that are dangerous to their buyers.

Our society has gotten to the point where we might soon become less and less shocked by any kind of violence.

The point is, you have an ethnic heritage and you have a human heritage. Your human heritage includes everything of human value.

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