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.

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.

It was a weak spot in any nation to have a large body of disaffected people within its confusion.

Everybody is two beings: one lives and flourishes in the daylight and stands guard. The other being walks and howls at night.

I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother's side was not an Indian chief.

Folklore is the boiled-down juice, or pot-likker, of human living.

It seems to me that trying to live without friends is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble, and then not worth much after you get it.