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

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

Anytime you catch folks lying, they scared of something!

It seems to me that trying to live without friends is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble, and then not worth much after you get it.

Two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves.

There is two things everybody got to find out for themselves. They got to find out about love and they got to find out about living.

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.

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.

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.

People can be slave ships in shoes.

I laugh at those who think they can damage me. They do not know who I am, they do not know what I think, they cannot even touch the things which are really mine and with which I live.

We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

Follow your instincts and live with the consequences.

Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.

Live life like its the last breath you take for that breath is the whole essence of living, the little things in life are what connects us to all the big things we live for.

In our work and in our living, we must recognize that difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction.

I freely chose the kind of life I led because I was convinced that a woman has as much right as a man to live the way she does if she does no actual harm to society.