“I have seen so many lands vanish in my wake, torn down like stage sets. What survives of them? An image as fleeting as a dream: whatever beauties I discovered, I already knew by heart.”

“Even as it clouds our corporeal vision, intoxication clarifies our spiritual vision. The mind, set free from the heavy bondage of the body, flees away like a prisoner whose guard has fallen asleep,...”

“Illusions fall away one after another like the husks of a fruit, and that fruit is experience. It is bitter to the taste, but there is fortitude to be found in gall forgive me my old-fashioned tur...”

“Childhood memories surge back more vividly midway through life like some palimpsest whose original text suddenly reappears after the manuscript has been chemically treated.”

“I am the other.”

“Everything is alive, everything is in motion, everything corresponds; the magnetic rays that emanate from me or from others flow directly through the infinite chain of creation whose transparent ne...”

“Ex-slaves, in large part, shared a different economic vision. They were "always on the move," searching for family, denying their labor to "dishonest or oppressive employers," and asserting their i...”

“White folks have controlled New Orleans with money and guns, black folks have controlled it with magic and music, and although there has been a steady undercurrent of mutual admiration, an intermin...”

“But lets not forget the Jew. Anybody that gives even a just criticism of the Jew is instantly labeled anti-Semite. The Jew cries louder than anybody else if anybody criticizes him. You can tell the...”

“Saturday night is perfect for writers because other people have "plans.”

“Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.”

“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”

“Coming from Chicago, I like a white Christmas.”

“The British were white, English, and Protestant, just as we were. They had to have some other basis on which to justify independence, and happily they were able to formulate the inalienable truths ...”

“'White Material' is about courage and craziness.”