Publisher Quotes

“I wish the rent Was heaven sent.”

“Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it ... what you wish in your secret heart were not funny, but it is, and you must laugh. Humor is your own unconscious therapy. Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air, and you.”

“Cheap little rhymes A cheap little tune Are sometimes as dangerous As a sliver of the moon.”

“I went down to the river, I set down on the bank. I tried to think but couldn't, So I jumped in and sank.”

“Negro blood is sure powerful, because just one drop of black blood makes a colored man. One drop--you are a Negro! . . . Black is powerful.”

“One of the great difficulties about being a member of a minority race is that so many kindhearted, well-meaning bores gather around to help.”

“Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.”

“Life is a big sea full of many fish. I let down my nets and pulled. I'm still pulling.”

“Good evening, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? Trilling the treble And twining the bass Into midnight ruffles Of cat-gut lace.”

“Life for me ain't been no crystal stair”

“Rest at pale evening... A tall slim tree... Night coming tenderly Black like me”

“My personal experience has been that in my 25 years of writing, I have not been asked to do more than four or five commercial one-shot scripts. These were performed on major national hook-ups but produced for me no immediate additional jobs or requests. One script for BBC was done around the world with an all-star cast.”

“Love is a naked shadow, On a gnarled and naked tree.”

“Hard as I try, daddy-o, I really do not like concert singers. They are always singing in some foreign language.”

“Go home and write / a page tonight. / And let that page come out of you - / Then, it will be true.”

“I look at my own bodyWith eyes no longer blind-And I see that my own hands can makeThe world that's in my mind.”

“I will not take "but" for an answer.”

“Harriet Tubman lived to see the harvest.”

“What happens to a dream deferred?”

“Don't come giving me, who's old enough to die and too near blind to create anything any more anyhow, a great big banquet that you eat up in honor of your own stomachs as much as in honor of me- who's toothless and can't eat.”

“Good morning, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? Listen closely: You'll hear their feet Beating out and beating out a - You think It's a happy beat? Listen to it closely: Ain't you heard something underneath like a - What did I say? Sure, I'm happy! Take it away! Dream Boogie Hey, pop! Re-bop! Mop! Y-e-a-h!”

“A dream deferred is a dream denied.”

“We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line.”

“The calm, Cool face of the river, Asked me for a kiss”

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