Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go..

We can make America what America must become..

Recognizing a problem doesn't always bring a solution, but until we recognize that problem, there can be no solution..

The American idea of racial progress is measured by how fast I become white..

The moral authority in the Western world is gone. And it is gone forever. It is gone, not because of the criminal record--everybody's record is crimi….

To defend oneself against a fear is simply to insure that one will, one day, be conquered by it; fears must be faced..

It is a terrible, an inexorable, law that one cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one's own: in the face of one's victim, one see….

Life is more important than art; that's what makes art important..

It was as though we were a picture, trapped in time: this had been happening for hundreds of years, people sitting in a room, waiting for dinner, and….

My friend was about to introduce me when she looked at me and smiled and said, "Whose little boy are you?".

The occurrence of an event is not the same thing as knowing what it is that one has lived through..

Artists are here to disturb the peace..

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time..

The establishment of democracy on the American continent was scarcely as radical a break with the past as was the necessity, which Americans faced, o….

In the invincible and indescribable squalor of Harlem ... I was tormented. I felt caged, like an animal. I wanted to escape. I felt if I did not get ….

The miracle is that some have stepped out of the rags of the Republic's definition to assume the great burden and glory of their humanity and their r….

When Americans look out on the world, they see nothing but dark and menacing strangers who appear to have no sense of rhythm at all, nor any respect ….

Hatred is always self hatred, and there is something suicidal about it..

The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally ….

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch..

A writer has to take all the risks of putting down what he sees. No one can tell him about that. No one can control that reality. It reminds me of so….