It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.
I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled.
It is very nearly impossible… to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.
Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.
No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.
The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.
People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.
Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.
People can cry much easier than they can change.
The noblest spirit is most strongly attracted by the love of glory.
You know, it’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.
The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.
The writer’s greed is appalling. He wants, or seems to want, everything and practically everybody, in another sense, and at the same time, he needs no one at all.
