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

Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.

Most musicians remain poor. But the music that they make, even if it does not bring them millions, gives millions of people happiness.

Everybody should take each other as they are, white, black, Indians, Creole. Then there would be no prejudice, nations would get along.

Yet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade, Are only silly puppet gods That people themselves Have made.-

I dream a world... where wretchedness will hang its head and joy, like a pearl, attends the needs of all mankind. Of such I dream, my world!

I asked you, baby, If you understood- You told me that you didn't, But you thought you would.