I'm lonely I'll make me a world.

Amsterdam was a great surprise to me. I had always thought of Venice as the city of canals; it had never entered my mind that I should find similar conditions in a Dutch town.

You are young, gifted, and Black. We must begin to tell our young, There's a world waiting for you, Yours is the quest that's just begun.

Every race and every nation should be judged by the best it has been able to produce, not by the worst.

The colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them.

My appearance was always good and my ability to play on the piano, especially ragtime, which was then at the height of its vogue, made me a welcome guest.

Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty. Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies; Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

This country can have no more democracy than it accords and guarantees to the humblest and weakest citizen.

Young man, young man, your arm's too short to box with God.

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.

It’s no disgrace to be black, but it’s often very inconvenient.

Had a big trial. It was like an Errol Flynn movie.

If you want me to believe in your redeemer, you are going to have to look a lot more redeemed.

The simple intention to surrender control is all you need to experience miracles.

For some to love you, some must loathe you.

In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.

I think as Christians, we all have the same calling, and that calling is to love God with all our heart, mind, and soul and love others as ourselves and to glorify God in everything that we do.

What I love about theatre is that it disappears as it happens.

Creative memory is the historian's most subtle opponent.

You can work hard, do everything that you think is right, but one thing you'll never overcome in life is fate. You can't control fate.

I make no complaint. I am a writer. I do not accept my condition; I will strive to change it; but I inhabit it, I am trying to learn from it.