“What is the Black Spot, Captain?" "That's a summons, mate.”

“There is no servant except that there exists a white spot upon his heart. So when he commits a sin, a black spot arises into that white spot. Then when he repents, this black spot moves away. But if he continues on committing sins, the blackness of this spot increases till such time that it overwhelms and overrides the whiteness. When the whiteness is all covered over (by the blackness), the owner of it (the heart) does never at all return towards beneficence and goodness. And This is what God means when he says: "Nay! rather, what they used to do has become like a rust upon their hearts."”

“At my moment, there was always a token black person. And in the ’70s I became that token black person. It brings out the worst in people when they think there’s only one spot, where for everyone else there are lots of spots.”

“Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the coal company office. Bill Hutchinson held it up, and there was a stir in the crowd.”

“I can see the black spots of the sun [remark to Sonia Delaunay, his wife and female artist].”

“What wine goes with Captain Crunch?”

“What a man wants is a mate and what a woman wants is infinite security.”

“What if they were allowed to choose their own mate? And chose wrong?”

“Oh captain my captain”

“They weave a slow andante as in sleep,
Scaled yellow, swampy black, plague-spotted white;
With blue and lidless eyes at watch they keep
A treachery of silence; infinite.”