The things we truly love stay with us always, locked in our hearts as long as life remains.

What am I most ashamed of in my life? Not keeping my promise to my sister and being too scared of America to attend her funeral.

My people have a country of their own to go to if they choose... Africa... but, this America belongs to them just as much as it does to any of the white race... in some ways even more so, because they gave the sweat of their brow and their blood in slavery so that many parts of America could become prosperous and recognized in the world.

I ran away from St. Louis, and then I ran away from the United States, because of that terror of discrimination.

I shall dance all my life. . . . I would like to die, breathless, spent, at the end of a dance.

He was my cream, and I was his coffee - And when you poured us together, it was something.

You must get an education. You must go to school, and you must learn to protect yourself. And you must learn to protect yourself with the pen, and not the gun.