“Enough white lies can scorch the earth black.”

“The newest truth about truth lies in the truth that human truths can lie, when they are parts-of-the-truth.Call them 'white-lies' or 'black-truths', they are both true and a lie.”

“Because I'm not a white boy, I'm not white enough for white folks. And because I wasn't born into the middle class, I'm not completely accepted by the mainstream. And sometimes, if you can believe it, I'm not ghetto enough for the mainstream or middle class enough for the ghetto or black enough for white folks!”

“We shall be free only together, black and white. We shall survive only together, black and white. We can be human only together, black and white.”

“If you are scorched earth, I will be warm rain.”

“To the black man, the white man looks and smells like a corpse. To the white man, the black man has the color and odor of shit. Their mutual hatred is based on a reciprocal recognition: the white man hates the black man for exposing that masked and hidden part of himself. The black man hates the white man's need to pull himself up from the earth. The black man sees in the white man's need the blind arrogance of one who thinks himself immortal. But he who brings civilization cannot help but feel immortal. This is why he smells like a corpse: he is constituted by the return of the repressed "remnant of earth," which clings to him as much as to any man.”