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.

Life dosent frighten me at all.

I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.

Go home and write / a page tonight. / And let that page come out of you - / Then, it will be true.

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

It's such a Bore Being always Poor.

Life is a big sea full of many fish. I let down my nets and pulled. I'm still pulling.