"The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people he's writing about."

"People who believe that they are white are not white. They are merely people who are trying to avoid the fact that they are human."

"The root of the matter is that the white man has projected onto the Negro that which he despises, fears, and wishes to avoid in himself."

"The great thing about being an artist is that you are allowed to make mistakes."

"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read."