there are times when life's ends are so raveled that reason and sense cry out that we stop and gather them together again before we can proceed

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!

Always trust in proven survivors.

The one thing you share with every mortal is death.

Let everything be a confirmation of Awareness.

We may see Michael Jackson's baby before we know the final outcome of this race for the House of Representatives tonight.

God loves you as do I and no matter what physical characteristics that differ from each and every one of us, we are but one family under the heavens.

Whatever fame a novelist my attain, it's always kind of an anonymous one. I can go anywhere, and no one knows who I am.

What good is a planet called Earth, after all, if you own no land?

The value of our good is not measured by what it does, but by the amount of good it does to the one concerned.

Carey's had though times as well, so between the two of us, it's perfect

If the world attacks and you slide off track, remember one fact, I got your back.