"The root of the matter is that the white man has projected onto the Negro that which he despises, fears, and wishes to avoid in himself."

"I am not a category. I am a writer."

"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."

"All of us know, whether we say it or not, that life is a battle."

"I think the great problem in America is that we've never been able to face the fact that we were founded on a lie."