The fortress inspired a tremendous confidence. It was the only propeller driven aircraft I have flown that was completely viceless; there were no undesirable flight characteristics. The directional stability was excellent and, properly trimmed, the B-17 could be taken off, landed and banked without change of trim.

It’s no disgrace to be black, but it’s often very inconvenient.

My mother was kept very busy with her sewing; sometimes she would have another woman helping her.

O Black and unknown bards of long ago, How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?

And so for a couple of years my life was divided between my music and my school books.

I thought of Paris as a beauty spot on the face of the earth, and of London as a big freckle.

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.