Integration begins the day after the minds of the people are desegregated.

What a tiresome place America would be if freedom meant we all had to think alike or be the same color or wear the same gray flannel suit! That road leads to the conformity of the graveyard!

Life is a short walk. There is so little time and so much living to achieve.

My fight is not for racial sameness but for racial equality and against racial prejudice and discrimination.

Most of us came here in chains and most of you came here to escape your chains. Your freedom was our slavery, and therein lies the bitter difference in the way we look at life.

We have to undo the millions of little white lies that America told itself and the world about the American Black man.

Western man wrote "his" history as if it were the history of the entire human race.

The Negro was invented in America.

The Negro loves America enough to criticize her fundamentally. Most white Americans simply can't be bothered.

Reese sucked in a breath and played faster, hurling the anger through his fingers until it spun all hisfear, all his rage, into the gentle voice of music.

Only true remorse and "Will you forgive me?" can press the reset button.

The trials of living and the pangs of disease make even the short span of life too long.

I spent lots of time reading the encyclopedia and really kind of an eclectic approach to learning things - not very structured.

A genuine fast cleanses the body, mind and soul. It crucifies the flesh and to that extent sets the soul free.

Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.

Oh, could we lift the future's sable shroud.

The best books are those which lift us to a higher plane where we breathe a purer atmosphere.

I might be old, but I'm still desirable.