I do not weep at the world I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

So the brother in black offers to these United States the source of courage that endures, and laughter.

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

Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.

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!

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

Perhaps love is a compelling necessity imposed on man by God that has something to do with suffering