American violence is public life, it's a public way of life, it became a form, a detective story form. So I should think that any number of black writers should go into the detective story form.

Martyrs are needed to create incidents. Incidents are needed to create revolutions. Revolutions are needed to create progress.

There is an indomitable quality within the human spirit that cannot be destroyed; a face deep within the human personality that is impregnable to all assaults.

Man cannot live without some knowledge of the purpose of life. If he can find no purpose in life he creates one in the inevitability of death.

Democracy is not tolerance. Democracy is a prescribed way of life erected on the premise that all men are created equal.

I grew to manhood in the Ohio State Penitentiary.

The Harlem of my books was never meant to be real; I never called it real; I just wanted to take it away from the white man if only in my books.

You are no more responsible for what that man said than I am. You cannot take the blame for another's actions.

According to a new survey, 40 percent of adults in Mexico say they would move to the United States if they got a chance. The number would have been higher, but the other 60 percent already live here.

To say, "Well, I write when I really get into it" is a bunch of bull. Put the paper in the typewriter, stare at it a long time, get snowblindness if you have to, but write something.

Of course, living is another way of killing oneself: its drawback is that it takes so horribly long.

In 2007 the 'dagger' of an idea that killed President Bush's effort at reforming the immigration system was lax border security.

I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to be anywhere. I'm not kidding.

The feelings which seek expression in words are mostly egotistical, since they seek to express what flatters our self-love and can show us, as we imagine, in the best light.

Do not teach your children never to be angry; teach them how to be angry.

If I persist, if I continue to try, if I continue to charge forward, I will succeed!

My father was a politician, and a very important politician, and one of the leaders of the Iraqi Democratic Party, who believed in progress.