[T]here is only one large circle that we march in, around and around, each of us with our own little picture -- in front of us -- our own little mirage that we think is the future.

Seems like God don't see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams - but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worthwhile.

Though it be a thrilling and marvellous thing to be merely young and gifted in such times, it is doubly so - doubly dynamic - to be young, gifted and black.

I believe that one of the most sound ideas in dramatic writing is that in order to create the universal, you must pay very great attention to the specific. Universality, I think, emerges from truthful identity of what is.

When a man knows that the abstraction ten exists - nothing on earth can stop him from looking for the fact of eleven.

The grim possibility is that she who 'hides her brains' will, more than likely, end up with a mate who is only equal to a woman with 'hidden brains' or none at all.

Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most; when they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain't through learning - because that ain't the time at all... When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is.