Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be.

I'm so tired of waiting, aren't you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind?

Summer was made to give you a taste of what hell is like. Winter was made for landladies to charge high rents and keep cold radiators and make a fortune off of poor tenants.

These feet have walked ten thousand miles working for white folks and another ten thousand keeping up with colored.

Through my grandmother's stories always life moved, moved heroically toward an end. Nobody ever cried in my grandmother's stories. They worked, or schemed, or fought. But no crying. When my grandmother died, I didn't cry, either. Something about my grandmother's stories (without her ever having said so) taught me the uselessness of crying about anything."

Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.