Publisher Quotes

“Road's in front o' me, Nothin' to do but walk.”

“Good morning, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? • • • • You think It's a happy beat?”

“I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.”

“Violent anger makes me physically ill.”

“If the government can set aside some spot for a elk to be a elk without being bothered, or a buffalo to be a buffalo without being shot down, there ought to be some place where a Negro can be a Negro without being Jim Crowed.”

“7 x 7 plus love = An amount Infinitely above: 7 x 7 - love.”

“An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.”

“The only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it, and finally you'll finish it.”

“Looks like what drives me crazy Don't have no effect on you-- But I'm gonna keep on at it Till it drives you crazy, too.”

“Well, son, I'll tell you: Life for me ain't been no crystal stair. It's had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor -- Bare. But all the time I'se been a-climbin' on, And reachin' landin's, And turnin' corners, And sometimes goin' in the dark Where there ain't been no light. So boy, don't you turn back. Don't you set down on the steps 'Cause you finds it's kinder hard. Don't you fall now -- For I'se still goin', honey, I'se still climbin', And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.”

“In all my life, I have never been free. I have never been able to do anything with freedom, except in the field of my writing.”

“Success is the most natural thing in the world. The person who does not succeed has placed himself in opposition to the laws of the Universe.”

“A book on cheap paper does not convince. It is not prized, it is like a wheezy doctor with pigtail tobacco breath, who needs a manicure.”

“Righteous indignation: your own wrath as opposed to the shocking bad temper of others”

“All wages are based primarily on productive power. Anything else would be charity.”

“Wisdom must go with Sympathy, else the emotions will become maudlin and pity may be wasted on a poodle instead of a child-on a field-mouse instead of a human soul.”

“What people need and what they want may be very different.”

“Public opinion is the judgment of the incapable many opposed to that of the discerning few.”

“The teacher is one who makes two ideas grow where only one grew before.”

“Fortitude: That quality of mind which does not care what happens so long as it does not happen to us.”

“Allow motion to equal emotion.”

“The great Big Black Things that have loomed against the horizon of my life, threatening to devour me, simply loomed and nothing more. The things that have really made me miss my train havealways been sweet, soft, pretty, pleasant things of which I was not in the least afraid.”

“A good front is half the battle in love or war.”

“There is no failure except the failure of trying.”

“A person born with an instinct for poverty.”