The forties and fifties were years of high poet-incense; the language-flowers were thickly sweet. Those flowers whined and begged white folks to pick them, to find them lovable. Then the '60s: Independent fire!

I've always thought of myself as a reporter.

Exhaust the little moment / Soon it dies.

A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.

To be in love Is to touch things with a lighter hand. In yourself you stretch, you are well.

Good health is a duty to yourself, to your contemporaries, to your inheritors, to the progress of the world.

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