The hate directed against the colored people here in St. Louis has always given me a sad feeling because when I was a little girl I remember the horror of the East St. Louis race riot.

You are on the eve of a complete victory. You can't go wrong. The world is behind you.

To realise our dreams we must decide to wake up.

I'm not intimidated by anyone. Everyone is made with two arms, two legs, a stomach and a head. Just think about that.

I shall dance all my life. . . . I would like to die, breathless, spent, at the end of a dance.

You must get an education. You must go to school, and you must learn to protect yourself. And you must learn to protect yourself with the pen, and not the gun.

We must change the system of education and instruction. Unfortunately, history has shown us that brotherhood must be learned, when it should be natural.

The things we truly love stay with us always, locked in our hearts as long as life remains.

A violinist had a violin, a painter his palette. All I had was myself. I was the instrument that I must care for.

Let us stop saying 'white Americans' and 'colored Americans,' let us try once and for all saying... Americans. Let human beings be equal on Earth as in Heaven.

Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone.

I wanted to leave marks or what?prints or blemishes? so when they track you, they'd know, i'd been there inside you, like an odour of your skin

I'd always follow Nixon's orders, but you can't order somebody to be happy.

Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end.

Lets ignore our mothers' well-meant advice.

Bitter words normally evaporate with the moisture of breath, after a quarrel. In order to become permanent, they require transcribers, reporters, complicit black hearts.

When I was in the war, I was lucky that I was in a plane and never saw the carnage close-up.

The American dream itself is declining.

None can believe how powerful prayer is, and what it is able to effect, but those who have learned it by experience.

Our hearts resonate at the same frequency as the earth and the universe. Therefore, we are all valuable instruments in the orchestration of the world and its harmony.

A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!