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

Nothing can beat the smell of dew and flowers and the odor that comes out of the earth when the sun goes down.

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

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

When you dominate other people's emotions, the time has to come when you will have to pay, and heavily, for that privilege.

Basically there is no difference between whites and blacks, browns and yellows. I decided to think no more of people as Northerners and Southerners.

If I wanted pity, I got it because I'm illegitimate. And when I didn't want it I was mean and nasty.