I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of the hunger for life that gnaws in us all.
I listened, vaguely knowing now that I had committed some awful wrong that I could not undo, that I had uttered words I could not recall even though I ached to nullify them, kill them, turn back time to the moment before I had talked so that I could have another chance to save myself.
Goddamnit, look! We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we ain’t. They do things and we can’t. It’s just like livin’ in jail.
The white folks like for us to be religious, then they can do what they want to with us.
You asked me questions nobody ever asked me before. You knew that I was a murderer two times over, but you treated me like a man...
The thing to do was to act just like others acted, live like they lived, and while they were not looking, do what you wanted.
Literature is a struggle over the nature of reality.
Held at bay by the hate of others, preoccupied with his own feelings, he was continuously at war with reality.
Having been thrust out of the world because of my race, I had accepted my destiny by not being curious about what shaped it.
Men are inventing ideas every day to justify for themselves and others their actions and needs.
Cross felt that at the heart of all political movements the concept of the basic inequality of man was enthroned and practiced, and the skill of politicians consisted in how cleverly they hid this elementary truth and gained votes by pretending the contrary.