To Defend Oneself Against A Fear Is

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.

Children Have Never Been Very Good At Listening To Their Elders, But They Have Never Failed To Imitate Them.

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.

One Writes Out Of One Thing Only - One's Own Experience. Everything Depends On How Relentlessly One Forces From This Experience The Last Drop, Sweet Or Bitter, It Can Possibly Give. This Is The Only Real Concern Of The Artist, To Recreate Out Of The Disorder Of Life That Order Which Is Art.

Everything Now, We Must Assume, Is In Our Hands; We Have No Right To Assume Otherwise. If We Do Not Falter In Our Duty Now, We May Be Able, Handful That We Are, To End The Racial Nightmare, And Achieve Our Country, And Change The History Of The World.