It is a magic book. Words mean things. When you put them together they speak. Yes, sometimes they flatten out and nothing they say is real, and that is one kind of magic. But sometimes a vision will rip up from them and shriek and clank wings clear as the sweat smudge on the paper under your thumb. And that is another kind. (p. 163)

We have done a tiny bit to free the darkies in this country. But the devil is still very much our slave. (p. 60)

Always remember the objects you are working with. When you make a bridge, remember you are putting steel on stone and dirt. ... Some day you will write poems to a little girl: marks with ink on paper. ... When you are making love, you are moving flesh against flesh. That is the basis of all magic. (p. 30)

Yeah, nigger, you better grin. Niggers can't smile in this book. (p. 87)

What I look for in a friend is someone who's different from me. The more different the person is, the more I'll learn from him. The more he'll come up with surprising takes on ideas and things and situations. (p. 239)

But it's always intriguing to discover the ways in which desire fuels the systems of the world. (p. 257)

Honesty is the best policy; a policy is, after all, a strategy for living in the polis — in the city ... (p. 78) [ellipses in original]