I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

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

He was the average mortal. It troubled him to get used to the world one way and then suddenly have it turn different.

He looked like the love thoughts of women.

The man who interprets Nature is always held in great honor.

I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.

When a man keeps beating me to the draw mentally, he begins to get glamorous.