"I, too, sing America. 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. Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes. Nob…"

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

"I am a Negro. I am a writer. I am an American. I am a human being."

"I have been a victim of a kind of intellectual lynching."

"I remember the days when I was a kid and I used to go to the movies and sit in the balcony. And I would see the white kids downstairs, and I would be up there with all the other colored kids."