Life for me ain't been no crystal stair

I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.

Life is a system of half-truths and lies, Opportunistic, convenient evasion.

An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.

Cheap little rhymes A cheap little tune Are sometimes as dangerous As a sliver of the moon.

Yet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade, Are only silly puppet gods That people themselves Have made.-

We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line.