I grew to manhood in the Ohio State Penitentiary.

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.

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.

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

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.

Oh, Eeyore, you are wet!” said Piglet, feeling him. Eeyore shook himself, and asked somebody to explain to Piglet what happened when you had been inside a river for quite a long time.

Kissing is something that makes up for a whole lot of the other crap you have to put up with in school, and as a teenager in general

By sowing frugality we reap liberty, a golden harvest.

As I see it, the thing that hurt my putting most when it was bad, was thinking too much about how I was making the stroke and not enough about getting the ball in the hole.

But it's also because of something personal. My mother and father met while playing chess, so I've always had a fondness for the game. If it weren't for chess, I might not be here.

I don't want to be in Terminator. I don't want to go to Hollywood.

I got really interested in the language used in blogs written by young girls - a young person's aggression, which is always lacking from the visual world.

A lifetime’s work, to try and say one thing that’s true.

Love the questions, themselves.

There is an old saying, "How did you go bankrupt?" And the answer is, "Gradually, and then suddenly." The impending fiscal crisis in the United States will make its appearance in the same way.