I do not think white America is committed to granting equality to the American Negro... this is a passionately racist country; it will continue to be so in the foreseeable future.

I don't write because there's an audience. I write because there is literature.

The capacity to be overwhelmed by the beautiful is astonishingly sturdy and survives amidst the harshest distractions.

The traditional metaphor for a spiritual investigation is that of the voyage or the journey. From this image I must dissociate myself. I do not consider myself a voyager, I have preferred to stand still.

Never worry about being obsessive. I like obsessive people. Obsessive people make great art

If an irreducible distinction between theatre and cinema does exist, it may be this: Theatre is confined to a logical or continuous use of space. Cinemahas access to an alogical or discontinuous use of space.

There is a terrible, mean American resentment toward a writer who tries to do many things.