“And I can’t die easy thinking maybe the menfolks white or black is making a spit cup out of you. Have some sympathy for me. Put me down easy, Janie, I’m a cracked plate.”

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

It was funny if you looked at it right quick, but it got pitiful if you thought about it awhile.

The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor.

Grown people know that they do not always know the way of things, and even if they think they know, they do not know where and how they got the proof.

My head was full of misty fumes of doubt.

Those that don’t got it, can’t show it. Those that got it, can’t hide it.

I made up my mind to keep my feelings to myself since they did not seem to matter to anyone else but me.

Bitterness is the coward’s revenge on the world for having been hurt.

If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don’t keer if you die at dusk. It’s so many people never seen de light at all.

I will fight for my country, but I will not lie for her.

People can be slave ships in shoes.

Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it’s some place way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don’t know nothin’ but what we see.

She didn’t read books so she didn’t know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop.

An envious heart makes a treacherous ear. They done ‘heard’ bout you just what they hope done happened.

Night came walking through Egypt swishing her black dress.

She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her.

My job is to be the constructive awakener of the black masses of the world so them know themself and others know what black people suppose to be and where.

I remember how being young and Black and gay and lonely felt. A lot of it was fine, feeling I had the truth and the light and the key, but a lot of it was purely hell.

If the universe is meaningless, so is the statement that it is so. If this world is a vicious trap, so is its accuser, and the pot is calling the kettle black.

You are never too old to have a revelation.

Don’t worry about the Black Panther Party. As long as you keep the beat, we’ll keep on going.

The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.

I have a great relationship with the blacks.

We all have a part to play in the story of change.