“We give all we have, lives, property, safety, skill...we fight, we die, for a simple thing. Only that a man can stand up.”

“How old are you Johnny" she asked.Sixteen."And what's that-a boy or a man?"He laughed. "A boy in time of peace and a man in time of war.”

“If you can't do, you'd best shut up about it.”

“If you can't do, you had best shut up. He started to slam the door, thought better of it. If you can't do, you'd best not slam doors.”

“Religion is, in reality, living. Our religion is not what we profess, or what we say, or what we proclaim; our religion is what we do, what we desire, what we seek, what we dream about, what we fantasize, what we think - all these things - twenty-four hours a day. One's religion, then, is ones life, not merely the ideal life but the life as it is actually lived. Religion is not prayer, it is not a church, it is not theistic, it is not atheistic, it has little to do with what white people call "religion." It is our every act. If we tromp on a bug, that is our religion; if we experiment on living animals, that is our religion; if we cheat at cards, that is our religion; if we dream of being famous, that is our religion; if we gossip maliciously, that is our religion; if we are rude and aggressive, that is our religion. All that we do, and are, is our religion.”

“We are all exiles from our past , and, as such, we need to recapture it.”

“Writing is one of the loneliest of the arts; unlike the actor we have no immediate audience and must wait many long months, even years on occasion, for the splatter of applause to reach our ears, if indeed we are not damned by total neglect.”