“A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies.”

For love reflects the thing beloved.

Thou madest man, he knows not why, he thinks he was not made to die.

What the sunshine is to the flower, the Lord Jesus Christ is to my soul.

And the days darken round me, and the years, Among new men, strange faces, other minds.

There is sweet music here that softer falls Than petals from blown roses on the grass.

I can’t be anonymous by reason of your confounded photographs. (To Julia Margaret Cameron)

A beam in darkness: let it grow.

So many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to be.

Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die.

A still small voice spake unto me, ‘Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be?

Ours is not to wonder why. Ours is just to do or die.

The voice of the dead was a living voice to me.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore, And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.

And our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips.

Things seen are mightier than things heard.

O love, O fire! once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul through My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.

I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

The situation of women and men is not comparable to worker-boss or black and white.

Being a blues singer is like being black two times.

Who could imagine a poet wearing anything other than black?

But between sets I’d sneak over to the black places to hear blues musicians. It got to the point where I was making my living at white clubs and having my fun at the other places.

For me black is not dark, it’s poetic. I don’t think of gothic I think of classic – it’s a big difference.

Black is not sad. Black is poetic.

The truth is, no man is white and no man is black. We are all freckled.