“Grass is the forgiveness of nature - her constant benediction. ... Forests decay harvests perish flowers vanish but grass is immortal.”

“The purification of politics is an iridescent dream.”

“The race to which we belong is the most arrogant and rapacious the most exclusive and indomitable in history. All other races have been its enemies or its victims.”

“Some negroes lie, some are immoral, some negro men are not be trusted around women - black and white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.”

“The only honest way to approach the question of whiteness and blackness is to start by accepting that these are arbitrary categories that were invented in the 17th and 18th century in order to just...”

“I never asked Tolstoy to write for me, a little colored girl in Lorain, Ohio. I never asked [James] Joyce not to mention Catholicism or the world of Dublin. Never. And I don't know why I should be ...”