When I were a young man, I used to play baseball and steal bases just like Jackie Robinson. If the empire would rule me out, I would get mad and hit the empire.

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? ... Or does it explode?

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

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.

A dream deferred is a dream denied.

There is no color line in death. I swear to the lord I still can't see Why Democracy means Everybody but me. O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath - America will be! I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.

It has seemed to me that most people are generally good, in every race and in every country where I have been.