“To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.”

I want to be an honest man and a good writer.

Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford.

The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

Nakedness has no color: this can come as news only to those who have never covered, or been covered by, another naked human being.

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.

If a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe.

Perhaps he is a fool or a coward but almost everybody is one or the other and most people are both.

History is not a procession of illustrious people. It’s about what happens to a people. Millions of anonymous people is what history is about.

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

All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it.

It is easy to proclaim all souls equal in the sight of God; it is hard to make men equal on earth in the sight of men.

The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.

Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.

If you’re treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person.

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

Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.

Happy the man to whom heaven has given a morsel of bread without laying him under the obligation of thanking any other for it than heaven itself.

Cicely Tyson was my inspiration to become an actor.

Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt.

Independent bread alone can redeem woman from her curse of subjection to man.

There is not a woman born who desires to eat the bread of dependence, no matter whether it be from the hand of father, husband, or brother; for anyone who does so eat her bread places herself in the power of the person from whom she takes it.

The Eucharist prepares us for a place in eternity, because it is the Bread of Heaven.

My piece of bread only belongs to me when I know that everyone else has a share, and that no one starves while I eat.

People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.