She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.

From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom…It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears. The rose of the world was breathing out smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep.

I do not share the gloomy thought that Negroes in America are doomed to be stomped out bodaciously, nor even shackled to the bottom of things. Of course some of them will be tromped out, and some will always be at the bottom, keeping company with other bottom-folks.

A thing is mighty big when time and distance cannot shrink it.

She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her.

It seems like the first law of Nature is that everybody likes to receive things, but nobody likes to feel grateful.

Slogans can be worse than swords if they are only put in the right mouths.