Langston Hughes — "Humor is a way of saying something serious without being too serious."

"If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad…"

"I've been a dishwasher, a cook, a busboy, a waiter, a laundress, a delivery boy, a truck driver, a chauffeur, a gardener, a bellhop, a doorman, a houseman, a janitor, a porter, a longshoreman, a seama…"

"Sometimes I feel like I'm a ghost in my own life."

"The moon is a disc of silver, the stars are tiny diamonds, and the night is a black velvet cloth."

"Democracy will not come Today, this year, nor ever Through compromise and fear."