"Dat's de way it is with some women. Dey ain't got no sense at all."

"Power is the thing that makes a man want to keep another man down."

"I have been a Negro, and I have been a woman, and I have been an American. And I have been all of these things at once."

"I am a Negro. I am proud to be a Negro. I am proud to be an American."

"I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions."