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

The loss of love is a terrible thing; They lie who say that death is worse.

I have a rendezvous with life.

The truth is... everything counts. Everything. Everything we do and everything we say. Everything helps or hurts; everything adds to or takes away from someone else.

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

[W]e have always resented the natural inclination of most white people to demand spirituals the moment it is known that a Negro is about to sing. So often the request has seemed to savor of the feeling that we could do this and this alone.

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