Girl, I got my mind. And what goes on in it. Which is to say, I got me...my lonely is mine.

Most of the really good literature I've read in my life was political, meaning it was important - about something going on in the history of the world - or contemporary.

Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it.

Alice thought, No. It wasn't the War and the disgruntled veterans; it wasn't the droves and droves of colored people flocking to paychecks and streets full of themselves. It was the music. The dirty, get-on-down music the women sang and the men played and both danced to, close and shamelesss or apart and wild...It made you do unwise disorderly things. Just hearing it was like violating the law.

If we had no language we'd have nothing.

If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.

Please don't settle for happiness. It's not good enough. Of course you deserve it, but if that's all you have in mind - happiness - I want to suggest to you that personal success devoid of meaningfulness, free of a steady commitment to social justice - that's more than a barren life. It's a trivial one.