Fathers and sons arrive at that relationship only by claiming that relationship: that is by paying for it. If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons."

"True rebels, after all, are as rare as true lovers, and, in both cases, to mistake a fever for a passion can destroy one's life."

"We cannot discuss the state of our minorities until we first have some sense of what we are, who we are, what our goals are, and what we take life to be."

They saw themselves as others had seen them. They had been formed by the images made of them by those who had had the deepest necessity to despise them.

"There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention."