"Negroes are not a race. They are a political designation."

"I want to be a poet, and a novelist, and a playwright, and an anthropologist."

"I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes."

"I have been in sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots."

"It’s a funny thing, the less people have to live for, the less nerve they have to risk losing nothing."