“The rhythm of life is a jazz rhythm”

Keep your hand on the plow. Hold on.

We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they aren?t it doesn?t matter.

Money and art are far apart.

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed – Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.

Gather up In the arms of your love—Those who expect No love from above.

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.

Everybody should take each other as they are, white, black, Indians, Creole. Then there would be no prejudice, nations would get along.

I wish the rent Was heaven sent.

A dog gets lonesome just like a human. He wants to associate with other dogs, but when they take him out, the poor dog is on a leash and cannot run around.

I am a Negro: Black as the night is black, Black like the depths of my Africa.

Sometimes a crumb falls From the tables of joy, Sometimes a bone Is flung. To some people Love is given, To others Only heaven.

I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind.

If the government can set aside some spot for a elk to be a elk without being bothered, or a buffalo to be a buffalo without being shot down, there ought to be some place where a Negro can be a Negro without being Jim Crowed.

Gather quickly Out of darkness All the songs you know And throw them at the sun Before they melt Like snow.

I’ve been strong and determined all my life about many things I’ve wanted.

It is the simple things of life that make living worthwhile, the sweet fundamental things such as love and duty, work and rest, and living close to nature.

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.

[Meeting Mandela] was the highlight of my career; to meet such a great man and a strong man and such a passionate man about sport and life will always stay with me.

From time to time, I would like to cut off all the strings and lines that conclude that ridiculous puppet show they call life.

Of all the mental and physical polluters of life, nothing exercises such a poisonous effect as fear.

If we are faithful to God in little things, we shall gain experience and strength that will be helpful to us in the more serious trials of life.