I was born in a Negro town.

It's no use of talking unless people understand what you say.

Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves.

There is something about poverty that smells like death. Dead dreams dropping off the heart like leaves in a dry season and rotting around the feet; impulses smothered too long in the fetid air of underground caves. The soul lives in sickly air. People can be slaveships in shoes.

You have no idea, sir, how difficult it is to be the victim of benevolence.

Taint no law on earth dat kin make a man be decent if it aint in 'im.

Every morning the world flung itself over and exposed the town to the sun.