“Quakers almost as good as colored. They call themselves friends and you can trust them every time.”

Now I’ve been free, I know what a dreadful condition slavery is. I have seen hundreds of escaped slaves, but I never saw one who was willing to go back and be a slave.

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.

I personally think my sister is so stunning without makeup. And she doesn’t wear that much makeup because she has the best skin color.

We judge on the basis of what somebody looks like, skin color, whether we think they’re beautiful or not. That space on the Internet allows you to converse with somebody with none of those things involved.

Lipstick is iconic. It’s the one product that marks out an era, and a certain lip colour can define a season. It makes me feel more ‘done’.

I shed skin after skin, seeking my true colors, expecting a rainbow or a stripe of black, but all I get are maps of red. We are all human underneath.

Obviously black matches with everything.

How your words and pauses have become mine. How you are a full stop to my every line. You have colored me with your thoughts, red and white. The tinge of my blood and the pure divine.

Life should be black and white with no grey in between.

What a hideout: Holiness lies spread and borne over the surface of time and stuff like color.