How long was this going to last? How long was I going to be beaten for trifles and less than trifles? I was already so conditioned toward my relative… - Richard Wright

Granny intimated boldly, basing her logic on God’s justice, that one sinful person in a household could bring down the wrath of God upon the entire establishment, damning both the innocent and the guilty, and on more than one occasion she interpreted my mother’s long illness as the result of my faithlessness.

Communism, instead of making them leap forward with fire in their hearts to become masters of ideas and life, had frozen them at an even lower level of ignorance than had been theirs before they met Communism.

Most of the writers with whom I was most impressed were the French and Russian writers of another period. The one American writer who stood out to me was Richard Wright-and Dreiser. I took to their naturalism. I was able to understand so much of the country through them. Certainly I understood Black America because of Richard Wright.