“In all my life, I have never been free. I have never been able to do anything with freedom, except in the field of my writing.”

“Violent anger makes me physically ill.”

“An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.”

“Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people - the beauty within themselves.”

“We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white peopl...”

“I was a victim of a stereotype. There were only two of us Negro kids in the whole class, and our English teacher was always stress...”

“In all my life and in the future, I will always be a faithful and loyal servant to all of my compatriots.”

“It's like real life: We don't get a preview of what's coming up, thank God, and we don't build our own character from what we're g...”

“So at some point you realize that your life is not just going to start one day in the future, that you're living it.”

“When thinking about the future, it is fashionable to be pessimistic. Yet the evidence unequivocally belies such pessimism. Over th...”

“Life is going to be complex, and the only way we're able navigate our way through it at all is by living as best we can and absorb...”

“I can look at the future with anticipation. And it's comforting to know that someday, as Christians, we'll be able to look back an...”