“I started with this idea in my head, “There’s two things I’ve got a right to, death or liberty.”

Oh, Lord! You’ve been with me in six troubles, don’t desert me in the seventh!

I would fight for my liberty so long as my strength lasted, and if the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me.

We saw the lightning and that was the guns and then we heard the thunder and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped.

I had two sisters carried away in a chain-gang – one of them left two children. We were always uneasy.

In my dreams and visions, I seemed to see a line, and on the other side of that line were green fields, and lovely flowers, and beautiful white ladies, who stretched out their arms to me over the line, but I couldn’t reach them no-how. I always fell before I got to the line.

If you are tired, keep going. If you are scared, keep going. If you are hungry, keep going. If you want to taste freedom, keep going.

If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there’s shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.

You’ll be free or die!

Farewell, ole Maser, don’t think hard of me, I’m going on to Canada, where all the slaves are free.

Every great dream begins with a dreamer.

It wasn’t me, it was the Lord! I always told Him, ‘I trust to you. I don’t know where to go or what to do, but I expect You to lead me,’ and He always did.

I can’t die but once.

I said to the Lord, I’m going to hold steady on to you, and I know you will see me through.

I think slavery is the next thing to hell. If a person would send another into bondage, he would, it appears to me, be bad enough to send him into hell if he could.

The good Lord has come down to deliver my people, and I must go and help him.

God’s time is always near. He gave me my strength and he set the North Star in the heavens; He meant I should be free.

It is my dying wish to travel around the world; to feel this hurt in a slightly different way!

Sometimes even in pain we smile to the world until we think we’re dying.

One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

How surely are the dead beyond death. Death is what the living carry with them. A state of dread, like some uncanny foretaste of a bitter memory. But the dead do not remember and nothingness is not a curse. Far from it.

The broken worlds we hide inside; that’s how we start to die!

Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.

I want nothing to do with politicians. Their hearts wither away, and die out of their bodies. Their consciences are turned to india-rubber, or to some substance as black as that, and which will stretch as much.

Most days missing her is my only choice between death and dying.