One of the great difficulties about being a member of a minority race is that so many kindhearted, well-meaning bores gather around to help.

I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes. Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," Then. Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed-- I, too, am America.

Misery is when you heard on the radio that the neighborhood you live in is a slum but you always thought it was home.

In the spring rain, the pond and the river become one. Into every life some rain must fall. Usually when your car windows are down. It raineth on the Just and the Unjust Alike, But the Unjust stealeth the Just's umbrella Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The past has been a mint Of blood and sorrow. That must not be True of tomorrow.

I did not believe political directives could be successfully applied to creative writing . . . not to poetry or fiction, which to be valid had to express as truthfully as possible the individual emotions and reactions of the writer.

If the government can set aside some spot for a elk to be a elk without being bothered, or a buffalo to be a buffalo without being shot down, there ought to be some place where a Negro can be a Negro without being Jim Crowed.