I've been scared and battered. My hopes the wind done scattered. Snow has friz me, Sun has baked me, Looks like between 'em they done Tried to make me Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'-- But I don't care! I'm still here!

Humor is when the joke's on you but hits the other fellow first -- before it boomerangs.

Misery is when you heard on the radio that the neighborhood you live in is a slum but you always thought it was home.

Rest at pale evening... A tall slim tree... Night coming tenderly Black like me

Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.

It is the duty of the younger Negro artist . . . to change through the force of his art that old whispering "I want to be white," hidden in the aspirations of his people, to "Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro - and beautiful!"

Sometimes a crumb falls From the tables of joy, Sometimes a bone Is flung. To some people Love is given, To others Only heaven.