Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:/ To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

We were not made to eternally weep.

If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET.

Give but a grain of the heart's rich seed, Confine some under cover, And when love goes, bid him God-speed. And find another lover.

Never love with all your heart, It only ends in aching.

There is no secret to success except hard work and getting something indefinable which we call 'the breaks.

I was reared in the conservative atmosphere of a Methodist parsonage.