"It is human to want to be better than you are."

"The very first principle of life is this: Never let anybody get your goat."

"I have been in sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peak of happiness and seen the world. I have been loved and hated, and I have done some of both. I have been a fri…"

"I have been a Negro, and I have been a woman, and I have been an American. And I have been all of these things at once."

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