Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it ... what you wish in your secret heart were not funny, but it is, and you must laugh. Humor is your own unconscious therapy. Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air, and you.

Both of them were very good and kind - the one who went to church and the one who didn't. And no doubt from them I learned to like both Christians and sinners equally well.

For my best poems were all written when I felt the worst. When I was happy, I didn't write anything.

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.

Melting pot Harlem-Harlem of honey and chocolate and caramel and rum and vinegar and lemon and lime and gall. Dusky dream Harlem rumbling into a nightmare tunnel where the subway from the Bronx keeps right on downtown.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro - and beautiful!