If you posses enough courage to speak out what you are, you will find that you are not alone.

Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.

Don't leave inferences to be drawn when evidence can be presented.

Reading was like a drug, a dope. The novels created moods in which I lived for days.

Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books.

But the color of a Negro's skin makes him easily recognizable, makes him suspect, converts him into a defenseless target

All literature is protest.

Violence is a personal necessity for the oppressed...It is not a strategy consciously devised. It is the deep, instinctive expression of a human being denied individuality.

Love grows from stable relationships, shared experience, loyalty, devotion, trust.

I knew that I lived in a country in which the aspirations of black people were limited, marked-off. Yet I felt that I had to go somewhere and do something to redeem my being alive.

Make up your mind, Snail! You are half inside your house, And halfway out!

it is hard not to count the hoursi have left with you.it is hard to be here now--knowing everything between uswill come to an end.

What has defined our faith since the beginning is open-ended gladness.

A book is a small library you can fit into your pocket.

I'd seen people overstay their welcome and I didn't want that to happen at all.

It's really nice to have things to mail to people when they mail you things, or trade to people at shows. Something homemade, it feels... down to earth.

We cannot live pleasantly without living wisely and nobly and righteously.

Music had been my first love among the arts, and I was fascinated by it, as I still am.

Big dreams turn into big things.

Everybody has to learn that the world works in very specific ways, and you're not in charge of it.

It's still the best game in town because you don't have to be big to play, and everybody plays. Even your grandmother probably played baseball.