“I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen when company comes, but I laugh, and eat well, and grow strong.”

When poems stop talking about the moon and begin to mention poverty, trade unions, color, color lines and colonies, somebody tells the police.

When a man starts out to build a world, He starts first with himself

Whiskey just naturally likes me but beer likes me better.

For my best poems were all written when I felt the worst. When I was happy, I didn’t write anything.

The depression brought everybody down a peg or two. And the Negroes had but few pegs to fall.

I dream a world… where wretchedness will hang its head and joy, like a pearl, attends the needs of all mankind. Of such I dream, my world!

We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line.

Misery is when you heard on the radio that the neighborhood you live in is a slum but you always thought it was home.

When peoples care for you and cry for you, they can straighten out your soul.

Hang yourself, poet, in your own words. Otherwise, you are dead.

Out of love, No regrets– Though the goodness Be wasted forever. Out of love, No regrets– Though the return Be never.

Pleasured equally In seeking as in finding, Each detail minding, Old Walt went seeking And finding.

Life dosent frighten me at all.

I stay cool, and dig all jive, That’s the way I stay alive. My motto, as I live and learn, is Dig and be dug In return.

Love is a naked shadow, On a gnarled and naked tree.

Everything there is but lovin’ leaves a rust on your old soul.

Wherever Jesus may lead us, He goes before us. If we don’t know where we are going, we know with whom we go.

In the past a leader was a boss. Today’s leaders must be partners with their people. They no longer can lead solely based on positional power.

If we want people on the front lines of companies to be responsible for making good business decisions, they must have the same information that managers use to make good business decisions.

I am not a private person; you can ask those who hang out with me.

The great companies did not know that the line between hunger and anger is a thin line.

May your love never end and if you need a friend. There’s a seat along side me.

Always surround yourself with people who are even more talented and competent than you.

You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.