I learned early in life not to judge others. We outcasts are very happy and content to leave that job to our social superiors.

It has been an ache and a joy both to look over this big shoulder of mine at all my yesterdays.

I am an isolationist.

There was one emotional outlet my people always had when they had the blues. That was singing.

We miss a lot in life because we don't know when to quit, what to leave out.

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

Negroes are human beings with exactly the same faults and virtues as members of the other races.