Birth, life, and death― each took place on the hidden side of a leaf.

There is an incredible amount of magic and feistiness in black men that nobody has been able to wipe out. But everybody has tried.

Everybody gets everything handed to them. The rich inherit it. I don't mean just inheritance of money. I mean what people take for granted among the middle and upper classes, which is nepotism, the old-boy network.

What I'm doing ain't about hating White people. It's about loving us.

It's been mentioned or suggested that Paradise will not be well studied, because it's about this unimportant intellectual topic, which is religion.

And they beat. The women for having known them and no more, no more; the children for having been them but never again. They killed a boss so often and so completely they had to bring him back to life to pulp him one more time. Tasting hot mealcake among pine trees, they beat it away. Singing love songs to Mr. Death, they smashed his head. More than the rest, they killed the flirt whom folks called Life for leading them on.

I wish I’d a knowed more people. I would of loved ‘em all. If I’d a knowed more, I would a loved more