“I had often thought about people who lived through strange and compelling times World War II, the Great Depression, the civil rights movement. These were periods that shaped people in some indelib...”

“People teachers, other students, parents constantly made offhand comments that didn't mean much to them, but I read something else in their words. A hidden language that told me I was different. ...”

“It made you wonder: How much of our lives was just luck or good timing, and how much was actually choice? How could it be that tiny serendipitous events could change everything? And if lucky events...”

“My parents' work ethic amazed me. How could they put in such long hours, day after day?Part of the reason was to keep the family going - to keep me going. I realized that, although we had different...”

“We were very different, and we disagreed about a lot of things, but he was always so interesting, you know?”

“We were more alike than any of the others, neither of us quite human and both hated by the two species we drifted between.”

“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 ...”

“Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned...Everything is war. Me say war.That until the're no longer 1st class and...”

“When youre sharing a foxhole with another man, you don't worry about what color he is, just whether or not he will protect your back”

“And Charles turned around and called back without thinking, 'You know, you're awfully lucky you boys are white.'He didn't know why he said it. It had broken out of him. He'd wanted to speak with lo...”