When white and black meet today, sometimes there is a ready understanding that there has been an encounter between two human beings. But often there is only, or chiefly, an awareness that Two Colors are in the room.

It frightens me to realize that, if I had died before the age of fifty, I would have died a 'Negro' fraction.

She was learning to love moments. To love moments for themselves.

We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.

Abortions will not let you forget. You remember the children you got that you did not get.

This is the urgency: Live! and have your blooming in the noise of the whirlwind.

People like definite decisions, / Tidy answers, all the little ravelings / Snipped off, the lint removed, they / Hop happily among their roughs / Calling what they can't clutch insanity / Or saintliness.