“You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason.”

Education is indoctrination if you’re white – subjugation if you’re black.

The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.

Those kids aren’t dumb. But the people who run these schools want to make sure they don’t get smart: they are really teaching the kids to be slaves.

People can cry much easier than they can change.

There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.

Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.

It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity.

Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.

The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

The world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare.

People can’t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents.

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.

Don’t judge me. You wanna judge me, put on a black gown and get a gavel. Get in line with the rest of them that’s about to judge me. I got court dates every other month. It’s me against the world – that’s how I feel.

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

If ever America undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the black race on the soil of the United States – that is to say, they will owe their origin not to the equality but to the inequality of conditions.

My mom wanted to make sure I was prepared to grow up with Black skin in America.

I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.

I’m an athlete and I’m black, and a lot of black athletes go broke. I do not want to become a statistic, so maybe I overcompensate. But I’m paranoid. Oprah told me a long time ago, ‘You sign every check. Never let anyone sign any checks.’

I am the daughter of Black writers who are descended from Freedom Fighters who broke their chains and changed the world. They call me.

As a young black woman, I notice at times in the mainstream media framing of the ‘me too’ movement you see a white female face or a white male face, and that type of questioning and interrogation needs to happen.