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."

My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind.

Rest at pale evening... A tall slim tree... Night coming tenderly Black like me

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.

Most musicians remain poor. But the music that they make, even if it does not bring them millions, gives millions of people happiness.

If you want to honor me, give some young boy or girl who's coming along trying to create arts and write and compose and sing and act and paint and dance and make something out of the beauties of the Negro race-give that child some help.

Life for me ain't been no crystal stair