I never posed as a saint. I would have slept with a man for nothing if I liked him well enough.

If whites bored me, it was because they bored themselves. They seemed to get little fun out of life and were desperately lonely.

I want affection and tenderness desperately, but there's something in me that prevents me from handing it out.

Among Negroes it is a bad omen when someone knocks on the door of a house where a person has died.

We are all gifted. That is our inheritance.

What broke Mom's heart was realizing that her children knew nothing and cared nothing about the better side of life.

I never posed as a saint. I would have slept with a man for nothing if I liked him well enough.