“Passion is not friendly. It is arrogant,superbly contemptuous of all that is notitself, and, as they very definition of passionimplies the impulse to freedom, it has a mightintimidiating power. It contains a challenge.It contains an unspeakable hope.”

“The face of a lover is an unknown, precisely because it is invested so much within oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment.”

“The artistic image is not intended to represent the thing itself, but, rather, the reality of the force the thing contains.”

“The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions.”

“Nothing is more unbearable, once has it, than freedom.”

“...for nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.”

“He leaned up a little and watched her face. Her face would now be, forever, more mysterious and impenetrable than the face of any stranger. Strangers' faces hold no secrets because the imagination does not invest them with any. But the face of a lover is an unknown precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment.”