When A Man Asks Himself What Is

One Day, To Everyone’s Astonishment, Someone Drops A Match In The Powder Keg And Everything Blows Up.

It Happened, As Many Things Do, Imperceptibly, In Many Ways At Once. I Date It - The Slow Crumbling Of My Faith, The Pulverization Of My Fortress - From The Time, About A Year After I Had Begun To Preach, When I Began To Read Again. I Justified This Desire By The Fact That I Was Still In School, And I Began, Fatally, With Dostoyevsky.

Even The Most Incorrigible Maverick Has To Be Born Somewhere. He May Leave The Group That Produced Him-he May Be Forced To-but Nothing Will Efface His Origins, The Marks Of Which He Carries With Him Everywhere. I Think It Is Important To Know This And Even Find It A Matter For Rejoicing, As The Strongest People Do, Regardless Of Their Station. On This Acceptance, Literally, The Life Of A Writer Depends.

The Establishment Of Democracy On The American Continent Was Scarcely As Radical A Break With The Past As Was The Necessity, Which Americans Faced, Of Broadening This Concept To Include Black Men.

When One Begins To Live By Habit And By Quotation, One Has Begun To Stop Living.