Columnist Quotes

“There's a certain amount of traveling in a dream deferred.”

“For my best poems were all written when I felt the worst. When I was happy, I didn't write anything.”

“One of the great needs of Negro children is to have books about themselves and their lives that can help them be proud.”

“Words Like Freedom There are words like Freedom Sweet and wonderful to say. On my heartstrings freedom sings All day everyday. There are words like Liberty That almost make me cry. If you had known what I know You would know why.”

“I stay cool, and dig all jive, That's the way I stay alive. My motto, as I live and learn, is Dig and be dug In return.”

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

“To my mind, it is the duty of the younger Negro artist, if he accepts any duties at all from outsiders, to change through the force of his art that old whispering 'I want to be white,' hidden in the aspirations of his people, to 'Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro - and beautiful!'”

“As long as what is is-and Georgia is Georgia-I will take Harlem for mine. At least, if trouble comes, I will have my own window to shoot from.”

“I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen when company comes, but I laugh, and eat well, and grow strong.”

“Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro - and beautiful!”

“Frosting Freedom Is just frosting On somebody else's Cake-- And so must be Till we Learn how to Bake.”

“I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.”

“Certainly there is, for the American Negro artist who can escape the restrictions the more advanced among his own group would put upon him, a great field of unused material ready for his art.”

“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 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. If they are not, it doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.”

“Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people - the beauty within themselves.”

“Good morning, Revolution: You're the very best friend I ever had. We gonna pal around together from now on”

“Life dosent frighten me at all.”

“Negroes - Sweet and docile, Meek, humble, and kind: Beware the day - They change their mind.”

“Gather quicklyOut of darknessAll the songs you knowAnd throw them at the sunBefore they meltLike snow.”

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

“When I were a young man, I used to play baseball and steal bases just like Jackie Robinson. If the empire would rule me out, I would get mad and hit the empire.”

“Reach Up Your Hand... and take a star.”

“Humor is when the joke's on you but hits the other fellow first -- before it boomerangs.”

“Folks, I'm telling you, birthing is hard and dying is mean- so get yourself a little loving in between.”

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