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!

The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell.

I belong to no race nor time. I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads.

It is hard to apply oneself to study when there is no money to pay for food and lodging. I almost never explain these things when folks are asking me why I don't do this or that.

I wish I could buy you for what you are really worth and sell you for what you think you're worth. I sure would make money on the deal.

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

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.