Listen up. Let me tell you something. A man ain’t a goddamn ax. Chopping, hacking, busting every goddamn minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he can’t chop down because they’re inside.

Make up a story... For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief's wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul.

How exquisitely human was the wish for permanent happiness, and how thin human imagination became trying to achieve it.

Freedom is choosing your responsibility. It's not having no responsibilitie s; it's choosing the ones you want.

Occasionally, as children, we might figure out how to call somebody a name, and they would figure out how to call us. But it wasn't - it was so light. It was so fluffy. I didn't really have a strong awareness of segregation and the separation of races until I left Lorain, Ohio.

Passion is never enough; neither is skill.

It was becoming a habit-this concentration on things behind him. Almost as though there were no future to be had. *Milkman*