Then I wanted to beg him to forgive me. But this would have been too great a confession; any yielding at that moment would have locked me forever in … - James Baldwin

People who cling to their illusions find it difficult, if not impossible, to learn anything worth learning: a people under the necessity of creating themselves must examine everything, and soak up learning the way the roots of a tree soak up water.

People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state on innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.

If one is continually surviving the worst that life can bring, one eventually ceases to be controlled by a fear of what life can bring; whatever it bring must be borne. And at this level of experience one's bitterness begins to be palatable, and hatred becomes too heavy a sack to carry.