Lgbtq Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Lgbtq. Here they are! All 100 of them:

That is — your friend?" "Philtatos," Achilles replied, sharply. Most beloved.
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
You had to be willing to fight in order for a love story to last a life time.
Kent Marrero (The Unsung Love Story (The River, #1))
Don't judge yourself by what others did to you.
C. Kennedy (Ómorphi)
Everything about Andrew was hot, from the hands holding him down to the mouth steadily taking Neil apart. Neil finally understood why his mother thought this was so dangerous.
Nora Sakavic (The King's Men (All for the Game, #3))
This is how we reveal ourselves: these tiny flashes of discomfort, the reactions we can’t hide.
Christina Lauren (Autoboyography)
You're every street I've ever walked. You're the tree outside my window, you're a sparrow as he flies. You're the book that I am reading. You're every poem I've ever loved.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz (Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World (Aristotle and Dante, #2))
...honestly I'm having a proper full-on GAY PANIC.
Alice Oseman (Heartstopper: Volume Two (Heartstopper, #2))
This is why homophobia is a terrible evil: it disguises itself as concern while it is inherently hate.
Tyler Oakley (Binge)
If you voted for a man who said "Grab em by the pussy," you have zero room to claim to protect anyone in bathrooms.
DaShanne Stokes
Love is a wild fire that cannot be contained by any mere element known to man.
Kent Marrero (The Unsung Love Story (The River, #1))
I was diamond on the outside, and I would not break. Inside, though, I was already broken.
Shaun David Hutchinson (We Are the Ants)
Once he asked me what I thought had turned me gay." "I hope you told him you were bitten by a gay spider," said Simon.
Cassandra Clare (City of Lost Souls (The Mortal Instruments, #5))
I don’t give a damn what Joanne has to say, Remus John Lupin is gay as the day is long, and I won’t hear a word against it.
Casey McQuiston (Red, White & Royal Blue)
Together, in that room, our childhood notions of love melted away. We discovered love was not a fairytale. Sometimes there were no happy endings, and when there were, you needed to work like hell to keep the happiness alive.
Kent Marrero (The Unsung Love Story (The River, #1))
I hate that word. Straight. At the very least, those of us who are nonstraight should get called curvy. Or scenic. Actually, I like that: 'Do you think she's straight?' 'Oh no. She's scenic
Nina LaCour (You Know Me Well)
As she was putting her boots on Daisy threw a barb over her shoulder that struck Connie right in the middle of her chest. ‘Grow up, Connie! This place is not for faint-hearted romantics!
Sheena Billett (From Manchester to the Arctic: Nurse Sanders embarks on an adventure that will change her life)
Do I really have to find a word for it? Can't it just be what it is?
David Levithan (Boy Meets Boy)
You don't deserve the anger you're turning on yourself. Your abuser's the one who does.
Cheryl Rainfield (Scars)
So, let me get this straight-- You want me to stop being a lesbian and being attracted to women because it is a 'sin'? Last time I checked, when you lie you are sinning. Sure, I could tell you I am no longer a lesbian or that I am no longer attracted to women and am straight, or I could even tell you the moon is made of cheese. I could tell you many things, but the moon will still not be made of cheese, and I will still not be attracted to men. I could tell you a lie in order to placate you, but isn’t the truth supposed to set me free? I choose truth over lies any day of the week.
Kent Marrero
He's not afraid of anything he feels. He's not afraid of saying it. He's only afraid of what happens when he does.
Casey McQuiston (Red, White & Royal Blue)
Freedom isn't just about voting and marrying and kissing on the street, although all of these things are important. Freedom is also about what you will allow yourself to do.
David Levithan (Two Boys Kissing)
Some people are born in the mountains, while others are born by the sea. Some people are happy to live in the place they were born, while others must make a journey to reach the climate in which they can flourish and grow. Between the ocean and the mountains is a wild forest. That is where I want to make my home.
Maia Kobabe (Gender Queer)
You look like a Turner painting and I want to learn your textures with my fingertips. You are the most fascinating thing in this beautiful house. I'd like to introduce my fists to whoever taught you to stop talking about the things that interest you.
Freya Marske (A Marvellous Light (The Last Binding, #1))
I don't think happily ever after is something that happens to you, Dev. I think it's something you choose to do for yourself.
Alison Cochrun (The Charm Offensive (The Charm Offensive, #1))
My brain is such a traitorous beast.
Christina Lauren (Autoboyography)
I had never realized before how much you can take from someone by not allowing them the words they need to describe themselves.
Cassandra Clare (Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2))
And we loved ourselves anyway.
Alice Oseman (Heartstopper: Volume Three (Heartstopper, #3))
For the first time in my life, I said the words, “I need a drink.
Kent Marrero (The Unsung Love Story (The River, #1))
Yes,” Magnus said. “About that. I deeply appreciate you saving my life. I’m very attached to my life. However, if it comes to a choice between your life and mine, Alec, remember I have already lived a very long time.
Cassandra Clare (The Red Scrolls of Magic (The Eldest Curses, #1))
If you love your country, you must be willing to defend it from fraud, bigotry, and recklessness--even from a president.
DaShanne Stokes
Me? I had no dreams. No longings. Dreams only set you up for disappointment. Plus, you had to have a life to have dreams of a better life.
Julie Anne Peters (Luna (National Book Award Finalist))
Being transgender is who you are, and the pain is what the outside does to you. The pain is what happens when you and the world go at each other's throats.
Andrew Joseph White (Hell Followed With Us)
I have done some of the best work of my life because of you. And I know you have done some of the best work of your life because of me. I don’t know a better way to explain what love means to two people like us.
Casey McQuiston (I Kissed Shara Wheeler)
I don’t believe doing something in front of everybody makes it more meaningful, anyway. If anything, it makes it stop belonging to you.
Casey McQuiston (I Kissed Shara Wheeler)
You're not under attack when others gain rights and privileges you've always had.
DaShanne Stokes
Grief is one big, gaping hole, isn’t it? It’s everywhere and all consuming. Some days you think you can’t go on because the only thing waiting for you is more despair. Some days you don’t want to go on because it’s easier to give up than to get hurt again.
Marieke Nijkamp (This Is Where It Ends)
What do you say when The Girl tells you that you're The Girl to her?
Casey McQuiston (I Kissed Shara Wheeler)
Love has no gender - compassion has no religion - character has no race.
Abhijit Naskar (Either Civilized or Phobic: A Treatise on Homosexuality)
I know. But this is my point. this whole deal with you and Nick being out to people... I think you need to stop worrying about anyone else feelings. - Aled Last
Alice Oseman (Heartstopper: Volume Three (Heartstopper, #3))
I'm done begging for a scrap of respect-I am done with those who enact suffering, and I am done with the sons of bitches who stand back and let it happen.
Andrew Joseph White (Hell Followed With Us)
Don’t. Don’t come out unless you want to. Don’t come out for anyone else’s sake. Don’t come out because you think society expects you to. Come out for yourself. Come out to yourself. Shout, sing it. Softly stutter. Correct those who say they knew before you did. That’s not how sexuality works, it’s yours to define.
Dean Atta (The Black Flamingo)
Amazing how eye and skin color come in many shades yet many think sexuality is just gay or straight.
DaShanne Stokes
Only by speaking out can we create lasting change. And that change begins with coming out.
DaShanne Stokes
I don’t identify as transgender. But I’m clearly gender not-normal. I don’t think even lesbian is the right identity for me. I really don’t. I might as well come out now. I identify as tired. I’m just tired.
Hannah Gadsby
Being gay or straight,” says Elizabeth, “is about who you want to go to bed with. Being trans—or cis—is about who you want to go to bed as.
Jodi Picoult (Mad Honey)
I think you've got to get out whatever's hurting you through your art, so it doesn't twist you up inside.
Cheryl Rainfield (Scars)
His hand lay across my stomach as he slept soundly. I entwined my fingers with his and breathed through the warmth that seeped through my chest. Such a simple, sweet thing to do, yet holding hands in bed was incredibly intimate.
N.R. Walker (Spencer Cohen, Book Three (Spencer Cohen, #3))
Every woman I have ever loved has left her print upon me, where I loved some invaluable piece of myself apart from me-so different that I had to stretch and grow in order to recognize her. And in that growing, we came to separation, that place where work begins.
Audre Lorde (Zami: A New Spelling of My Name)
No person, no matter how important society deems their relationship to you, has the right to denounce you for who you are.
Tyler Oakley (Binge)
You were the only one it could be.
Casey McQuiston (I Kissed Shara Wheeler)
She’s glad it’s Shara. Nobody else would have felt important enough.
Casey McQuiston (I Kissed Shara Wheeler)
Everything feels yes.
Christina Lauren (Autoboyography)
Magnus said, in a low voice, “And what’s that one?” Alec answered, “Stamina.” Magnus stared. “Are you serious?” Alec began to grin. “Yeah.” “Really, though,” Magnus said. “I want to be clear on this. You’re not just saying that to be sexy?” “No,” Alec answered, his voice husky, and swallowed. “But I’m glad if it is.
Cassandra Clare (The Red Scrolls of Magic (The Eldest Curses, #1))
I write short stories because I am one. I wish I was a novel. Breaths away from midnight, I know my final chapter is close. I look up at Valentino, wondering what life could’ve offered if I had more pages in me.
Adam Silvera (The First to Die at the End)
They should love you, just as you are. Parents should love their kids, right?" "You'd think so.
N.R. Walker (Spencer Cohen, Book Three (Spencer Cohen, #3))
I wanted to hear his window open, hear his espadrilles on the balcony, and then the sound of my own window, which was never locked, being pushed open as he'd step into my room after everyone had gone to bed, slip under my covers, undress me without asking, and after making me want him more than I thought I could ever want another living soul, gently, softly, and, with the kindness one Jew extends to another, work his way into my body, gently and softly, after heeding the words I'd been rehearsing for days now, Please, don't hurt me, which meant, Hurt me all you want.
André Aciman (Call Me by Your Name)
Henry is one talented bastard. A man of many hidden gifts, Alex muses half hysterically. A true prodigy. God save the queen.
Casey McQuiston (Red, White & Royal Blue)
Love should never mean having to live in fear.
DaShanne Stokes
I am small. So are stars from a distance. It's all a matter of perspective.
C. Kennedy (Slaying Isidore's Dragons)
I know you're upset, I know you're scared, but don't walk away.
Cheryl Rainfield (Scars)
I imagined a time when being gay is as unquestioned and un-judged as is having blue eyes. Some might call it fantasy or science fiction. I’d like to think it’s the future.
Missouri Vaun (All Things Rise (Return to Earth #1))
Privilege is when you contribute to the oppression of others and then claim that you are the one being discriminated against.
DaShanne Stokes
I don’t have enough gross words in my gross vocabulary to describe how gross that gross thought is. Gross.
A.S. King (Ask the Passengers)
Remus John Lupin is gay as the day is long
Casey McQuiston (Red, White & Royal Blue)
This feels like a big deal.' This makes me laugh. 'It is a big deal. I'm describing how my heart beats.
Christina Lauren (Autoboyography)
The things that I love about you aren't going to go away when you go on your book tour, and they're not going to go away when you go on your mission. I'll still be here, and I'll still be thinking about all those things. I'll still be working on being a better person, a better friend, a better son. I'll still be wondering what it would be like to be a better boyfriend for you. And you will be on your mission, thinking about how much you wish your weren't gay.
Christina Lauren (Autoboyography)
Have you ever heard of a man marrying another man? A woman being in love with another woman? Of people who find their hearts lie somewhere in the middle or with neither?
Kalynn Bayron (Cinderella Is Dead)
I wondered if all women did with other women was lie and hug.
Sarah Winman (When God Was a Rabbit)
I've been going to the library, looking up our history. There's a ton of it in anthropology books, a ton of it, Ruth. We haven't always been hated. Why didn't we grow up knowing that?
Leslie Feinberg (Stone Butch Blues)
He looks at me. His face is dotted with raindrops but I think there are tears too. 'I love her. I always have. You know that.' 'And me?' And I known he means how I feel about him and me kissing him. 'You're my friend, Gabriel.' 'Do you kiss all your friends like that?' But he asks it without the harshness of his other questions. It's a real question. 'Just you.
Sally Green (Half Wild (The Half Bad Trilogy, #2))
If I seem confident, it’s because I have to. You, of all people, know what I mean.
Casey McQuiston (I Kissed Shara Wheeler)
Abuse doesn't define you.
C. Kennedy (Ómorphi)
Not a boy or a girl, not any binary, rigid definition of a person. Just my everything.
Leah Raeder (Cam Girl)
It is strange... the reasons one feels he doesn't deserve things.
C. Kennedy (Slaying Isidore's Dragons)
There are tons of kids out there who endure chronic abuse and suffer in silence. They can’t trust anyone, they can’t tell anyone, and they have no idea how to get away from it.
C. Kennedy (Ómorphi)
Tolerance of intolerance enables oppression.
DaShanne Stokes
Did you know I had an ultrasound the day before my prom?" "That's . . . cool?" "It was cool! It was the big one, too. That's when I found out your gender." "Gender is a social construction.
Becky Albertalli (Leah on the Offbeat (Simonverse, #3))
Don't try to be brave all at once. Take it in steps.
C. Kennedy (Slaying Isidore's Dragons)
I am a monster beneath him, with arching hips, an octopus with hands everywhere at once. I don't think anything in the history of time has felt this good.
Christina Lauren (Autoboyography)
People are complicated. And messy. Seems too convenient that we’d all fit inside some multiple-choice question.
Riley Cavanaugh
It still irks me that I'll probably spend most of my life dividing the people I know into two groups: the people who support me without question and the ones who should.
Christina Lauren (Autoboyography)
Is this what people do? Get as close as they can and then push closer? Burn each other's faces into their eyelids? Let each other into every gap? And then what? Then just tomorrow, and more?
Rainbow Rowell (Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow, #3))
Is this just a polite way of saying you need time to recover from my flat? I won't lie. It was fairly terrible. But there were some compensations. Like what? You. I stared at the word for a really long time. Remember this is fake. Remember this is fake. Remember this is fake.
Alexis Hall (Boyfriend Material (London Calling, #1))
Sure, I could tell you I am no longer a lesbian or that I am no longer attracted to women and am straight, or I could even tell you the moon is made of cheese. I could tell you many things, but the moon will still not be made of cheese, and I will still not be attracted to men.
Kent Marrero
Light bursts behind my closed eyes, so intensely I nearly hear the popping sound. It's my brain melting, or my world ending, or maybe we've just been hit by a meteor and this is the rapture and I'm given one last perfect moment before I'm sent to purgatory and he;s sent somewhere much, much better. It isn't his first kiss - I know that - but it's his first real one.
Christina Lauren (Autoboyography)
And to the girl who kissed me,’ she says, ‘I have done some of the best work of my life because of you. And I know you have done some of the best work of your life because of me. I don’t know a better way to explain what love means to two people like us.
Casey McQuiston (I Kissed Shara Wheeler)
I’m afraid of men because it was men who taught me to fear. I’m afraid of men because it was men who taught me to fear the word girl by turning it into a weapon they used to hurt me. I’m afraid of men because it was men who taught me to hate and eventually destroy my femininity. I’m afraid of men because it was men who taught me to fear the extraordinary parts of myself
Vivek Shraya (I'm Afraid of Men)
Is this your boyfriend?" the first nun asked. Clair Olivia looked me up and down. “No. This is my gay friend who decided he was straight and single-handedly wrecked havoc at an all-boys school in Massachusetts this fall. He’s gay again and home for Christmas, so yay!
Bill Konigsberg (Openly Straight (Openly Straight, #1))
I am, and always have been - first, last, and always - a child of America. You raised me. I grew up in the pastures and hills of Texas, but I had been to thirty-four states before I learned how to drive. When I caught the stomach flu in the fifth grade, my mother sent a note to school written on the back of a holiday memo from Vice President Biden. Sorry, sir—we were in a rush, and it was the only paper she had on hand. I spoke to you for the first time when I was eighteen, on the stage of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, when I introduced my mother as the nominee for president. You cheered for me. I was young and full of hope, and you let me embody the American dream: that a boy who grew up speaking two languages, whose family was blended and beautiful and enduring, could make a home for himself in the White House. You pinned the flag to my lapel and said, “We’re rooting for you.” As I stand before you today, my hope is that I have not let you down. Years ago, I met a prince. And though I didn’t realize it at the time, his country had raised him too. The truth is, Henry and I have been together since the beginning of this year. The truth is, as many of you have read, we have both struggled every day with what this means for our families, our countries, and our futures. The truth is, we have both had to make compromises that cost us sleep at night in order to afford us enough time to share our relationship with the world on our own terms. We were not afforded that liberty. But the truth is, also, simply this: love is indomitable. America has always believed this. And so, I am not ashamed to stand here today where presidents have stood and say that I love him, the same as Jack loved Jackie, the same as Lyndon loved Lady Bird. Every person who bears a legacy makes the choice of a partner with whom they will share it, whom the American people will “hold beside them in hearts and memories and history books. America: He is my choice. Like countless other Americans, I was afraid to say this out loud because of what the consequences might be. To you, specifically, I say: I see you. I am one of you. As long as I have a place in this White House, so will you. I am the First Son of the United States, and I’m bisexual. History will remember us. If I can ask only one thing of the American people, it’s this: Please, do not let my actions influence your decision in November. The decision you will make this year is so much bigger than anything I could ever say or do, and it will determine the fate of this country for years to come. My mother, your president, is the warrior and the champion that each and every American deserves for four more years of growth, progress, and prosperity. Please, don’t let my actions send us backward. I ask the media not to focus on me or on Henry, but on the campaign, on policy, on the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans at stake in this election. And finally, I hope America will remember that I am still the son you raised. My blood still runs from Lometa, Texas, and San Diego, California, and Mexico City. I still remember the sound of your voices from that stage in Philadelphia. I wake up every morning thinking of your hometowns, of the families I’ve met at rallies in Idaho and Oregon and South Carolina. I have never hoped to be anything other than what I was to you then, and what I am to you now—the First Son, yours in actions and words. And I hope when Inauguration Day comes again in January, I will continue to be.
Casey McQuiston (Red, White & Royal Blue)
Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas - none of them bother me. I don't care what banner they raise. But what I can't stand are hollow people. When I'm with them I just can't bare it, and wind up saying things I shouldn't.
Haruki Murakami
Queerness is not yet here. Queerness is an ideality. Put another way, we are not yet queer, but we can feel it as the warm illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality. We have never been queer, yet queerness exists for us as an ideality that can be distilled from the past and used to imagine a future. The future is queerness's domain. (p. 1)
José Esteban Muñoz (Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity)
Inside my chest, my lungs are wild animals, clawing at the cage. "Oh, man," Autumn mumbles from beside me. "His smile makes me stupid." Her words are a dim echo of my own thoughts: His smile ruins me. The feeling makes me uneasy, a dramatic lurch that tells me I need to have him or I won't be okay.
Christina Lauren (Autoboyography)
Both sides need to come out of this looking like your little slap-fight at the wedding was some homoerotic frat bro mishap, okay? So, you can hate the heir too the throne all you want, write mean poems about him in your diary, but the minute you see a camera, you act like the sun shines out of his dick, and you make it convincing.
Casey McQuiston (Red, White & Royal Blue)
Gabriel.' I'm so close to him our lips are almost touching, and then I move closer so our lips are touching as I say his name again. It's like a kiss but it's not really a kiss. And it's nice and I want more. I move my lips without saying his name, still barely touching, then closer, caressing his lips with mine. And he kisses me.
Sally Green
The more I write stories for young people, and the more young readers I meet, the more I'm struck by how much kids long to see themselves in stories. To see their identities and perspectives—their avatars—on the page. Not as issues to be addressed or as icons for social commentary, but simply as people who get to do cool things in amazing worlds. Yes, all the “issue” books are great and have a place in literature, but it's a different and wildly joyous gift to find yourself on the pages of an entertainment, experiencing the thrills and chills of a world more adventurous than our own. And when you see that as a writer, you quickly realize that you don't want to be the jerk who says to a young reader, “Sorry, kid. You don't get to exist in story; you're too different.” You don't want to be part of our present dystopia that tells kids that if they just stopped being who they are they could have a story written about them, too. That's the role of the bad guy in the dystopian stories, right? Given a choice, I'd rather be the storyteller who says every kid can have a chance to star.
Paolo Bacigalupi
There are things that don’t make sense about me. I don’t know if I belong here. How can that be possible, to feel estranged from a place where everyone loves you? To owe your life to a place and still want to run? I’ve been trying and trying to figure out what it is about me that makes me feel this way and why it feels so deep and so big that it must be most of me, the skin stretching between my knuckles and across my shoulders and then the bones under them too. Knowing that I couldn’t have you if I wanted to—that stings almost the same. It’s almost the same feeling. They’re right beside each other. What do they have in common?
Casey McQuiston (I Kissed Shara Wheeler)
Anyone can be made to feel like an outsider. It’s up to the people who have the power to exclude. Often it’s on the basis of race. Depending on a culture’s fears and biases, Jews can be treated as outsiders. Muslims can be treated as outsiders. Christians can be treated as outsiders. The poor are always outsiders. The sick are often outsiders. People with disabilities can be treated as outsiders. Members of the LGBTQ community can be treated as outsiders. Immigrants are almost always outsiders. And in most every society, women can be made to feel like outsiders—even in their own homes. Overcoming the need to create outsiders is our greatest challenge as human beings. It is the key to ending deep inequality. We stigmatize and send to the margins people who trigger in us the feelings we want to avoid. This is why there are so many old and weak and sick and poor people on the margins of society. We tend to push out the people who have qualities we’re most afraid we will find in ourselves—and sometimes we falsely ascribe qualities we disown to certain groups, then push those groups out as a way of denying those traits in ourselves. This is what drives dominant groups to push different racial and religious groups to the margins. And we’re often not honest about what’s happening. If we’re on the inside and see someone on the outside, we often say to ourselves, “I’m not in that situation because I’m different. But that’s just pride talking. We could easily be that person. We have all things inside us. We just don’t like to confess what we have in common with outsiders because it’s too humbling. It suggests that maybe success and failure aren’t entirely fair. And if you know you got the better deal, then you have to be humble, and it hurts to give up your sense of superiority and say, “I’m no better than others.” So instead we invent excuses for our need to exclude. We say it’s about merit or tradition when it’s really just protecting our privilege and our pride.
Melinda French Gates (The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World)
When you hear of Gay Pride, remember, it was not born out of a need to celebrate being gay. It evolved out of our need as human beings to break free of oppression and to exist without being criminalized, pathologized or persecuted. Depending on a number of factors, particularly religion, freeing ourselves from gay shame and coming to self-love and acceptance, can not only be an agonising journey, it can take years. Tragically some don't make it. Instead of wondering why there isn't a straight pride be grateful you have never needed one. Celebrate with us.
Anthony Venn-Brown OAM (A Life of Unlearning - a journey to find the truth)
He knew I was gay for ages," he said, his voice soft. "We both did. Since we were, like, ten or eleven, maybe. As soon as we understood what gay was, we knew that's what I was. We... We used to kiss sometimes, when we were kids. When we were alone. Just little childish kisses, little pecks on the lips because we thought it was fun. We were always... really affectionate with each other. We'd cuddle and... we were kind to each other, rather than nasty like most children. I think we were so caught up in each other that we just... missed all the heteronormative propaganda that's thrust at you when you're that age. We didn't really realize it was weird until - yeah, until we were ten or eleven. But that didn't really stop us. I guess... I guess I always felt like it was more romantic than Aled did. Aled always just treated it like it was something that friends did rather than boyfriends. Aled... he's always been weird. He doesn't care what people think. He doesn't even, like, register the social norms... he's just caught up in his own little world.
Alice Oseman (Radio Silence)
I feel that for white America to understand the significance of the problem of the Negro will take a bigger and tougher America than any we have yet known. I feel that America's past is too shallow, her national character too superficially optimistic, her very morality too suffused with color hate for her to accomplish so vast and complex a task. Culturally the Negro represents a paradox: Though he is an organic part of the nation, he is excluded by the ride and direction of American culture. Frankly, it is felt to be right to exclude him, and it if felt to be wrong to admit him freely. Therefore if, within the confines of its present culture, the nation ever seeks to purge itself of its color hate, it will find itself at war with itself, convulsed by a spasm of emotional and moral confusion. If the nation ever finds itself examining its real relation to the Negro, it will find itself doing infinitely more than that; for the anti-Negro attitude of whites represents but a tiny part - though a symbolically significant one - of the moral attitude of the nation. Our too-young and too-new America, lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad, the holy and the evil, the high and the low, the white and the black; our America is frightened of fact, of history, of processes, of necessity. It hugs the easy way of damning those whom it cannot understand, of excluding those who look different, and it salves its conscience with a self-draped cloak of righteousness. Am I damning my native land? No; for I, too, share these faults of character! And I really do not think that America, adolescent and cocksure, a stranger to suffering and travail, an enemy of passion and sacrifice, is ready to probe into its most fundamental beliefs.
Richard Wright (Black Boy)