..we wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes- this debt we pay to human guile; with torn and bleeding hearts we smile.

We reduce the deity to vulgar fractions. We place our own little ambitions and label them ?divine messages?. With our short sight we affect to take a comprehensive view of eternity.

The age is materialistic. Verse isn't. I must be with the age, so I am writing prose.

People are taking it for granted that [the Negro] ought not to work with his head. And it is so easy for these people among whom we are living to believe this; it flatters and satisfies their self-complacency.

We wear the mask that grins and lies.

Slight was the thing I bought, small was the debt I thought, Poor was the loan at best - God! but the interest!

This, this indeed is to be accursed, For if we mortals love, or if we sing, We count our joys not by what we have, But by what kept us from that perfect thing.