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

I swear to the Lord, I still can’t see, why Democracy means, everybody but me.

There is no color line in art.

For poems are like rainbows; they escape you quickly.

Beauty for some provides escape, who gain a happiness in eyeing the gorgeous buttocks of the ape or Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying.

It has seemed to me that most people are generally good, in every race and in every country where I have been.

Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.

Road’s in front o’ me, Nothin’ to do but walk.

I’m so tired of waiting, aren’t you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind?

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

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.

Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it and it darts away.

Gonna be a twister to blow everything down That ain’t got the faith to stand its ground. Blow away the dreams that tear you apart. Blow away the dreams that break your heart. Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted.

Having children has made me incredibly efficient. It’s hard to leave them in the mornings, but I’m extremely productive during the day, knowing I want to be fully focused on them when I get home.

Grasping for empty promises creating hazards in the dark. Leaving a mess we can’t clean up all in the name of love.

Leaving was the hardest most liberating act of self preservation and self love I did.

Beautiful leaving (hajr), is to leave without harming, beautiful pardoning is to pardon without rebuking, and beautiful patience is to be patient without complaining.

I came into this world screaming. I plan to leave it quieter, softer and letting everything I’ve done do the talking.

You tossed me out like dirt but out of dirt roses grew and I have more thorns than petals.