I been through living for years. I just ain't dead yet.

I love myself when I am laughing. . . and then again when I am looking mean and impressive.

Among the thousand white persons, I am a dark rock surged upon, and overswept.

There's two things everybody got to find out for themselves: they got to find out about love, and they got to find out about living. Now, love is like the sea. It's a moving thing. And it's different on every shore. And living... well... There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.

Faith hasn't got no eyes, but she's long-legged.

I maintain that I have been a Negro three times--a Negro baby, a Negro girl and a Negro woman. Still, if you have received no clear cut impression of what the Negro in America is like, then you are in the same place with me. There is no The Negro here. Our lives are so diversified, internal attitudes so varied, appearances and capabilities so different, that there is no possible classification so catholic that it will cover us all, except My people! My people!