The [priest] was really my teacher, because I reacted against the things he told me.

Art is animated by invisible forces that rule the universe.

I have always taken care to put an idea or emotion behind my words. I have made it a habit to be suspicious of the mere music of words.

All change, all production and generation are effected through the word.

The equilibrium you admire in me is an unstable one, difficult to maintain. My inner life was split early between the call of the Ancestors and the call of Europe, between the exigencies of black-African culture and those of modern life.