Like all people who have nothing, I lived on dreams.

The real thing creates its own poetry.

The world is a wheel always turning.

A man is free to go up as high as he can reach up to; but I, with all my style and pep, can't get a man my equal because a girl is always judged by her mother.

This fire in me, it's not just the hunger of a woman for a man - it's the hunger of all my people back of me, from all ages, for light, for the life higher!

I too was frightened the first time I felt I hated my father. I felt like a criminal. But could I help it what was inside of me? I had to feel what I felt even if it killed me.

Woe is me! Bitter is me! For what is my life? Why didn't the ship go under and drown me before I came to America?