We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins.

I'm one of the undeserving poor: that's what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he's up agen middle class morality all the time.... What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything.

If I bind the future I bind my will. If I bind my will I strangle creation.

Heaven, as conventionally conceived, is a place so inane, so dull, so useless, so miserable that nobody has ever ventured to describe a whole day in heaven, though plenty of people have described a day at the seaside.

How you ought properly to spell 'fish' in English: 'goti' .

Life is a flame that is always burning itself out; but it catches fire again every time a child is born. Life is greater than death, and hope than despair.

The American white relegates the black to the rank of shoeshine boy; and he concludes from this that the black is good for nothing but shining shoes.