"The American ideal, after all, is to be so rich that you don't have to deal with anybody."

"People who believe that they are white, and act on that belief, have to remain in a state of moral arrest."

"You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world."

"American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it."

"The great difficulty is that the American people are not, and do not want to be, aware of the nature of the crisis."