"The great difficulty is that the American people are not, and do not want to be, aware of the nature of the crisis."

"To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time."

"The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible."

"American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it."

"You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don't, you die. Or you don't die, but you don't live."