I know how to handle women who act like ladies, but my landlady ain't no lady. Sometimes I even wish I was living with my wife again so I could have my own place and not have no landladies.

Lawrence has a wonderful hill in it, with a university on top and the first time I ran away from home, I ran up the hill and looked across the world: Kansas wheat fields and the Kaw River, and I wanted to go some place, too. I got a whipping for it.

But there are certain very practical things American Negro writers can do. And must do. There's a song that says, "the time ain't long." That song is right. Something has got to change in America-and change soon. We must help that change to come.

O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.

Though you may hear me holler, And you may see me cry-- I'll be dogged, sweet baby, If you gonna see me die.

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.

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