When you use the term minority or minorities in reference to people, you're telling them that they're less than somebody else.

The civil rights situation is like a pregnancy. It will get worse, I believe, before it gets better. What the usual pregnancy comes to is a decent baby. That is what we all hope will be the end product of this stress. It is customary, at the end of a pregnancy, to have for your pains a decent baby.

Nothing could stop Mississippi.

I swear to keep the dead upon my mind, / Disdain for all time to be overglad.

We don't ask a flower any special reason for its existence. We just look at it and are able to accept it as being something different from ourselves.

I don't want people running around saying Gwen Brooks's work is intellectual. That makes people think instantly about obscurity. It shouldn't have to mean that, but it often seems to.

I don't like the idea of the black race being diluted out of existence. I like the idea of all of us being here.