To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.

To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow.

The writer's only responsibility is to his art.

I could smell the curves of the river beyond the dusk and I saw the last light supine and tranquil upon tideflats like pieces of broken mirror, then beyond them lights began in the pale clear air, trembling a little like butterflies hovering a long way off.

The past isn't over. It isn't even past.

Memory believes before knowing remembers. [Light in August]

a fellow is more afraid of the trouble he might have than he ever is of the trouble he's already got. He'll cling to trouble he's used to before he'll risk a change. Yes. A man will talk about how he'd like to escape from living folks. But it's the dead folks that do him the damage. It's the dead ones that lay quiet in one place and dont try to hold him, that he cant escape from.