There is no color line in art.

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?

I did not believe political directives could be successfully applied to creative writing . . . not to poetry or fiction, which to be valid had to express as truthfully as possible the individual emotions and reactions of the writer.

Good evening, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? Trilling the treble And twining the bass Into midnight ruffles Of cat-gut lace.

Gather out of star-dust, Earth-dust, Cloud-dust, Storm-dust, And splinters of hail, One handful of dream-dust, Not for sale.

I stuck my head out the window this morning and spring kissed me bang in the face.

Keep your hand on the plow. Hold on.