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

Folks, I'm telling you, birthing is hard and dying is mean- so get yourself a little loving in between.

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

I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.

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.

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

We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.