Now, as then, we find ourselves bound, first without, then within, by the nature of our categorization. And escape is not effected through a bitter railing against this trap; it is as though this very...
NEGROES IN THE NORTH ARE right when they refer to the South as the Old Country. A Negro born in the North who finds himself in the South is in a position similar to that of the son of the Italian emig...
My progress reportconcerning my journey to the palace of wisdomis discouraging.I lack certain indispensable aptitudes.
My novel's about Brooklyn. The tree? Or the kids or the murderers or the junkies? Vivaldo swallowed. All of them. That's quite an assignment. And if you don't mind my saying so, it sounds just a littl...
Love him,’ said Jacques, with vehemence, ‘love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters? And how long, at the best, can it last, since you are both men and stil...
Life, it is true, is a process of decisions and alternatives, the conscious awareness and acceptance of limitations. Experience, nevertheless, to say nothing of history, seems clearly to indicate that...
It’s funny about people. Just before something happens, you almost know what it is. You do know what it is, I believe. You just haven’t had the time—and now you won’t have the time—to say it to yourse...
It's a miracle to realize that somebody loves you.
It was as though I were yelling up to Heaven and Heaven would not hear me. And if Heaven would not hear me- to wash me, to make me clean- then utter disaster was my portion.
It was Southern, therefore, to put it brutally, because of the history of America—the United States of America: and small black boys and girls were now paying for this holocaust. They were attempting...
It seemed, then, that a lifetime would not be long enough for me to act with Joey the act of love.
It is very nearly impossible . . . to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind. --They Can’t Turn Back, in Mademoiselle (New York, Aug. 1960; repr. in The Price of...
It is savagely, if one may say so, ironical that the only proof the world -- mankind -- has ever had of White supremacy is in the Black face and voice: that face never scrutinized, that voice never he...
It is quite impossible to write a worth-while novel about a Jew or a Gentile or a Homosexual, for people refuse, unhappily, to function in so neat and one-dimensional a fashion.
It is only now beginning to be borne in on us—very faintly, it must be admitted, very slowly, and very much against our will—that this vision of the world is dangerously inaccurate, and perfectly usel...
It is not Bigger whom we fear, since his appearance among us makes our victory certain. It is the others, who smile, who go to church, who give no cause for complaint, whom we sometimes consider with...
It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have. --The Price of the Ticket, No Name in the Street (1972; repr. 1985) The
It doesn't do to look too hard into this mystery, which is as far from being simple as it is from being safe. We don't know enough about ourselves. I think it's better to know that you don't know, tha...
In the eeriest way possible, I suddenly had a glimpse of what white people must go through at a dinner table when they are trying to prove that Negroes are not subhuman. I had almost said, after all,...
In the beginning—and neither can this be overstated—a Negro just cannot believe that white people are treating him as they do; he does not know what he has done to merit it. And when he realizes that...