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From Barren Brown Stems To Glistening Leaf-buds; From The Leaf-buds To Snowy Virginity Of Bloom…it Was Like A Flute Song Forgotten In Another Existence And Remembered Again. What? How? Why? This Singing She Heard That Had Nothing To Do With Her Ears. The Rose Of The World Was Breathing Out Smell. It Followed Her Through All Her Waking Moments And Caressed Her In Her Sleep.

-Zora Neale Hurston

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From Barren Brown Stems

Zora Neale Hurston

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From Barren Brown Stems To Glistening Leaf-buds; From The Leaf-buds To Snowy Virginity Of Bloom…it Was Like A Flute Song Forgotten In Another Existence And Remembered Again. What? How? Why? This Singing She Heard That Had Nothing To Do With Her Ears. The Rose Of The World Was Breathing Out Smell. It Followed Her Through All Her Waking Moments And Caressed Her In Her Sleep.

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I Don't Know Any More About The Future Than You Do. I Hope That It Will Be Full Of Work, Because I Have Come To Know By Experience That Work Is The Nearest Thing To Happiness That I Can Find. . . I Want A Busy Life, A Just Mind And A Timely Death.

People Can Be Slave-ships In Shoes.

She Stood There Until Something Fell Off The Shelf Inside Her. Then She Went Inside There To See What It Was. It Was Her Image Of Jody Tumbled Down And Shattered. But Looking At It She Saw That It Never Was The Flesh And Blood Figure Of Her Dreams. Just Something She Had Grabbed Up To Drape Her Dreams Over.

Look Lak She Been Livin' Through Uh Hundred Years In January Without One Day Of Spring.

It Seems That Fighting Is A Game Where Everybody Is The Loser.

She Had Waited All Her Life For Something, And It Had Killed Her When It Found Her.

Those That Don't Got It, Can't Show It. Those That Got It, Can't Hide It.

Perhaps Love Is A Compelling Necessity Imposed On Man By God That Has Something To Do With Suffering

The Present Was An Egg Laid By The Past That Had The Future Inside Its Shell.

I Want A Busy Life, A Just Mind, And A Timely Death.

Once You Wake Up Thought In A Man, You Can Never Put It To Sleep Again.

But Any Man Who Walks In The Way Of Power And Property Is Bound To Meet Hate.

Perhaps, It Is Just As Well To Be Rash And Foolish For A While. If Writers Were Too Wise, Perhaps No Books Would Be Written At All. It Might Be Better To Ask Yourself "why?" Afterwards Than Before. Anyway, The Force From Somewhere In Space Which Commands You To Write In The First Place, Gives You No Choice. You Take Up The Pen When You Are Told, And Write What Is Commanded. There Is No Agony Like Bearing An Untold Story Inside You.

The Man Who Interprets Nature Is Always Held In Great Honor.

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.

It Is So Easy To Be Hopeful In The Daytime When You Can See The Things You Wish On. But It Was Night, It Stayed Night. Night Was Striding Across Nothingness With The Whole Round World In His Hands . . . They Sat In Company With The Others In Other Shanties, Their Eyes Straining Against Cruel Walls And Their Souls Asking If He Meant To Measure Their Puny Might Against His. They Seemed To Be Staring At The Dark, But Their Eyes Were Watching God.

When We Sing The Blues, We're Singin' Out Our Hearts, We're Singing Out Our Feelings. Maybe We're Hurt And Just Can't Answer Back, Then We Sing Or Maybe Even Hum The Blues.

Work Is The Nearest Thing To Happiness That I Can Find.

Trees And Plants Always Look Like The People They Live With, Somehow.

Anytime You Catch Folks Lying, They Scared Of Something!

The Liquor Of Statecraft Is Distilled From The Mash You Got.

It Seemed To Me That The Human Beings I Met Reacted Pretty Much The Same To The Same Stimuli. Different Idioms,yes. Circumstances And Conditions Having Power To Influence, Yes. Inherent Difference, No.

He Was The Average Mortal. It Troubled Him To Get Used To The World One Way And Then Suddenly Have It Turn Different.

To Me, Bitterness Is The Under-arm Odor Of Wishful Weakness. It Is The Graceless Acknowledgment Of Defeat.

Gods Always Behave Like The People Who Make Them.

I Had Hundreds Of Books Under My Skin Already. Not Selected Reading, All Of It. Some Of It Could Be Called Trashy. I Had Been Through Nick Carter, Horatio Alger, Bertha M. Clay And The Whole Slew Of Dime Novelists In Addition To Some Really Constructive Reading. I Do Not Regret The Trash. It Has Harmed Me In No Way. It Was A Help, Because Acquiring The Reading Habit Early Is The Important Thing. Taste And Natural Development Will Take Care Of The Rest Later On.

I Maintain That I Have Been A Negro Three Times--a Negro Baby, A Negro Girl And A Negro Woman. Still, If You Have Received No Clear Cut Impression Of What The Negro In America Is Like, Then You Are In The Same Place With Me. There Is No The Negro Here. Our Lives Are So Diversified, Internal Attitudes So Varied, Appearances And Capabilities So Different, That There Is No Possible Classification So Catholic That It Will Cover Us All, Except My People! My People!

I Am Not Tragically Colored. There Is No Great Sorrow Dammed Up In My Soul, Nor Lurking Behind My Eyes. I Do Not Mind At All. I Do Not Belong To The Sobbing School Of Negrohood Who Hold That Nature Somehow Has Given Them A Lowdown Dirty Deal And Whose Feelings Are All Hurt About It. Even In The Helter-skelter Skirmish That Is My Life, I Have Seen That The World Is To The Strong Regardless Of A Little Pigmentation More Or Less. No, I Do Not Weep At The World—i Am Too Busy Sharpening My Oyster Knife.

I Have Known The Joy And Pain Of Friendship. I Have Served And Been Served. I Have Made Some Good Enemies For Which I Am Not A Bit Sorry. I Have Loved Unselfishly, And I Have Fondled Hatred With The Red-hot Tongs Of Hell. That's Living.

You Got To Go There To Know There.

Love Makes Your Soul Crawl Out From Its Hiding Place.

But As De Old Folk Always Say, Ah'm Born But Ah Ain't Dead. No Tellin' Whut Ah'm Liable Tuh Do Yet.

Love, I Find, Is Like Singing. Everybody Can Do Enough To Satisfy Themselves, Though It May Not Impress The Neighbors As Being Very Much.

Ships At A Distance Have Every Man's Wish On Board.

My Sense Of Humor Will Always Stand In The Way Of My Seeing Myself, My Family, My Race Or My Nation As The Whole Intent Of The Universe.

Some People Could Look At A Mud Puddle And See An Ocean With Ships.

It Was Not Death She Feared. It Was Misunderstanding.

Misunderstanding

Among The Thousand White Persons, I Am A Dark Rock Surged Upon, And Overswept.

When The People Sat Around On The Porch And Passed Around The Pictures Of Their Thoughts For The Others To Look At And See, It Was Nice. The Fact That The Thought Pictures Were Always Crayon Enlargements Of Life Made It Even Nicer To Listen To.

We Must Learn To Be Honest With Ourselves, And Know Our Shortcomings. We Will Acquire Cohesion But We Will Pay Dearly For Being A Slow Pupil.

Love Is Lak De Sea. It’s Uh Movin’ Thing, But Still And All, It Takes Its Shape From De Shore It Meets, And It’s Different With Every Shore.

The Game Of Keeping What One Has Is Never So Exciting As The Game Of Getting.

Through Indiscriminate Suffering Men Know Fear, And Fear Is The Most Divine Emotion. It Is The Stones For Altars And The Beginning Of Wisdom.

That Is The Way With People ... If They Do You Wrong, They Invent A Bad Name For You, A Good Name For Their Acts And Then Destroy You In The Name Of Virtue.

She Was Stretched On Her Back Beneath The Pear Tree Soaking In The Alto Chant Of The Visiting Bees, The Gold Of The Sun And The Panting Breath Of The Breeze When The Inaudible Voice Of It All Came To Her. She Saw A Dust-bearing Bee Sink Into The Sanctum Of A Bloom; The Thousand Sister-calyxes Arch To Meet The Love Embrace And The Ecstatic Shiver Of The Tree From Root To Tiniest Branch Creaming In Every Blossom And Frothing With Delight.

It Is A Curious Thing To Be A Woman In The Caribbean After You Have Been A Woman In These United States.

She Had An Inside And An Outside Now And Suddenly She Knew How Not To Mix Them.

You Heard Me. You Ain't Blind.

The Whole Matter Revolves Around The Self-respect Of My People. How Much Satisfaction Can I Get From A Court Order For Somebody Toassociate With Me Who Does Not Wish Me Near Them?

Janie Saw Her Life Like A Great Tree In Leaf With The Things Suffered, Things Enjoyed, Things Done And Undone. Dawn And Doom Was In The Branches

I Have Been Amazed By The Anglo-saxon's Lack Of Curiosity About The Internal Lives And Emotions Of The Negroes, And For That Matter, Any Non-anglo-saxon Peoples Within Our Borders, Above The Class Of Unskilled Labor.

African American

An Envious Heart Makes A Treacherous Ear.

She Was Saving Up Feelings For Some Man She Had Never Seen.

The Inference Is, That God Has Restated The Superiority Of The West. God Always Does Like That When A Thousand White People Surround One Dark One. Dark People Are Always "bad" When They Do Not Admit The Divine Plan Like That. A Certain Javanese Man Who Sticks Up For Indonesian Independence Is Very Lowdown By The Papers, And Suspected Of Being A Japanese Puppet.

Research Is Formalized Curiosity. It Is Poking And Prying With A Purpose. It Is A Seeking That He Who Wishes May Know The Cosmic Secrets Of The World And They That Dwell Therein.

Distance Is The Only Cure For Certain Diseases.

Africa Has Her Mouth On Moses.

No Matter How Far A Person Can Go The Horizon Is Still Way Beyond You.

African American

Words Of Wisdom

Mama Exhorted Her Children At Every Opportunity To 'jump At The Sun.' We Might Not Land On The Sun, But At Least We Would Get Off The Ground.

She Knew Now That Marriage Did Not Make Love. Janie’s First Dream Was Dead, So She Became A Woman.

I Was Born In A Negro Town.

A Thing Is Mighty Big When Time And Distance Cannot Shrink It.

Ethical And Cultural Desegregation. It Is A Contradiction In Terms To Scream Race Pride And Equality While At The Same Time Spurning Negro Teachers And Self-association.

It Must Be Recess In (heaven) If St. Peter Is Lettin His Angels Out.

Nothing That God Ever Made Is The Same Thing To More Than One Person.

You Can't Beat Me And My Prayers!

I Am The Kind Of A Woman That Likes To Move On Mentally From Point To Point, And I Like For My Man To Be There Way Ahead Of Me. Then If He Is Strong And Honest, It Goes On From There. Good Looks Are Not Essential, Just Extra Added Attraction.

If You Kin See De Light At Daybreak, You Don't Keer If You Die At Dusk. It's So Many People Never Seen De Light At All.

Faith Hasn't Got No Eyes, But She's Long-legged.

Magic Is Older Than Writing. So Nobody Knows How It Started.

There Is No Single Face In Nature, Because Every Eye That Looks Upon It, Sees It From Its Own Angle. So Every Man's Spice-box Seasons His Own Food.

It Is Hard To Apply Oneself To Study When There Is No Money To Pay For Food And Lodging. I Almost Never Explain These Things When Folks Are Asking Me Why I Don't Do This Or That.

When One Is Too Old For Love, One Finds Great Comfort In Good Dinners.

Don't You Realize That The Sea Is The Home Of Water? All Water Is Off On A Journey Unless It's In The Sea, And It's Homesick, And Bound To Make Its Way Home Someday.

Here Was Peace. She Pulled In Her Horizon Like A Great Fish-net. Pulled It From Around The Waist Of The World And Draped It Over Her Shoulder. So Much Of Life In Its Meshes! She Called In Her Soul To Come And See.

It Was The Meanest Moment Of Eternity.

The Monstropolous Beast Had Left His Bed. The Two Hundred Miles A Hour Wind Had Loosed His Chains. He Seized Hold Of His Dikes And Ran Forward Until He Met The Quarters; Uprooted Them Like Grass And Rushed On After His Supposed-to-be Conquerors, Rolling The Dikes, Rolling The Houses, Rolling The People In The Houses Along With Other Timbers. The Sea Was Walking The Earth With A Heavy Heel.

Light Came To Me When I Realized That I Did Not Have To Consider Any Racial Group As A Whole. God Made Them Duck By Duck And That Was The Only Way I Could See Them.

Every Morning The World Flung Itself Over And Exposed The Town To The Sun.

If You Want That Good Feeling That Comes From Doing Things For Other Folks Then You Have To Pay For It In Abuse And Misunderstanding.

Doing Things For Others

I Love Myself When I Am Laughing.

It Seems Like The First Law Of Nature Is That Everybody Likes To Receive Things, But Nobody Likes To Feel Grateful.

Taint No Law On Earth Dat Kin Make A Man Be Decent If It Aint In 'im.

So She Sat On The Porch And Watched The Moon Rise. Soon Its Amber Fluid Was Drenching The Earth, And Quenching The Thirst Of The Day.

It Is Easy To Be Hopeful In The Day When You Can See The Things You Wish On.

Truth Is A Letter From Courage!

It Costs You Something To Do Good!

You'se Something Tuh Make Uh Man Forgit To Git Old And Forgit Tuh Die.

There Is Something About Poverty That Smells Like Death. Dead Dreams Dropping Off The Heart Like Leaves In A Dry Season And Rotting Around The Feet; Impulses Smothered Too Long In The Fetid Air Of Underground Caves. The Soul Lives In Sickly Air. People Can Be Slaveships In Shoes.

All Gods Who Receive Homage Are Cruel. All Gods Dispense Suffering Without Reason. Otherwise They Would Not Be Worshipped. Through Indiscriminate Suffering Men Know Fear And Fear Is The Most Divine Emotion. It Is The Stones For Altars And The Beginning Of Wisdom. Half Gods Are Worshipped In Wine And Flowers. Real Gods Require Blood.

She Starched And Ironed Her Face, Forming It Into Just What People Wanted To See.

I Have Been In Sorrow's Kitchen And Licked Out All The Pots. Then I Have Stood On The Peaky Mountain Wrapped In Rainbows, With A Harp And Sword In My Hands.

It Seems That Tears And Laughter, Love And Hate, Make Up The Sum Of Life!

Like The Dead-seeming, Cold Rocks, I Have Memories Within That Came Out Of The Material That Went To Make Me. Time And Place Have Had Their Say.

They Bowed Down To Him Rather, Because He Was All Of These Things, And Then Again He Was All Of These Things Because The Town Bowed Down.

If You Are Silent About Your Pain, They’ll Kill You And Say You Enjoyed It.

Harlem Renaissance

Tea Cake, The Son Of The Evening Sun, Had To Die For Loving Her.

There Is Something About Poverty That Smells Like Death.

[proverbs] Are Short Sayings Made Out Of Long Experience.

Everybody Is Two Beings: One Lives And Flourishes In The Daylight And Stands Guard. The Other Being Walks And Howls At Night.

It's A Funny Thing, The Less People Have To Live For, The Less Nerve They Have To Risk Losing Nothing.

I Do Not Pray. . . . I Do Not Expect God To Single Me Out And Grant Me Advantages Over My Fellow Men. . . . Prayer Seems To Me A Cry Of Weakness, And An Attempt To Avoid, By Trickery, The Rules Of The Game As Laid Down. I Do Not Choose To Admit Weakness. I Accept The Challenge Of Responsibility.

A Great State Is A Well-blended Mash Of Something Of All The People And All Of None Of The People. The Liquor Of Statecraft Is Distilled From The Mash You Got.

I Did Not Just Fall In Love. I Made A Parachute Jump.

Women Forget All The Things They Don't Want To Remember, And Remember Everything They Don't Want To Forget.

Remembers Everything

If Science Ever Gets To The Bottom Of Voodoo In Haiti And Africa, It Will Be Found That Some Important Medical Secrets, Still Unknown To Medical Science, Give It Its Power, Rather Than The Gestures Of Ceremony.

I Hold That Any Religion That Satisfies The Individual Urge Is Valid For That Person.

Silence Is All The Genius A Fool Has.

My Head Was Full Of Misty Fumes Of Doubt.

For Four Hundred Years The Blacks Of Haiti Had Yearned For Peace. For Three Hundred Years The Island Was Spoken Of As A Paradise Of Riches And Pleasures, But That Was In Reference To The Whites To Whom The Spirit Of The Land Gave Welcome. Haiti Has Meant Split Blood And Tears For Blacks.

To Avoid The Consequences Of Posterity The Mulattos Give The Blacks A First Class Letting Alone. There Is A Frantic Stampede White-ward To Escape From Jamaica's Black Mass.

God Took Pattern After A Pine Tree And Built You Noble.

The Morning Air Was Like A New Dress. That Made Her Feel The Apron Tied Around Her Waist. She Untied It And Flung It On A Low Bush Beside The Road And Walked On, Picking Flowers And Making A Bouquet… From Now On Until Death She Was Going To Have Flower Dust And Springtime Sprinkled Over Everything.

Two Things Everybody's Got Tuh Do Fuh Theyselves. They Got Tuh Go Tuh God, And They Got Tuh Find Out About Livin' Fuh Theyselves.

There Is Nothing To Make You Like Other Human Beings So Much As Doing Things For Them.

Anybody Depending On Somebody Else's Gods Is Depending On A Fox Not To Eat Chickens.

The Sun Had Become A Light Yellow Yolk And Was Walking With Red Legs Across The Sky.

When God Had Made The Man, He Made Him Out Of Stuff That Sung All The Time And Glittered All Over. Some Angels Got Jealous And Chopped Him Into Millions Of Pieces, But Still He Glittered And Hummed. So They Beat Him Down To Nothing But Sparks But Each Little Spark Had A Shine And A Song. So They Covered Each One Over With Mud. And The Lonesomeness In The Sparks Make Them Hunt For One Another.

From Barren Brown Stems To Glistening Leaf-buds; From The Leaf-buds To Snowy Virginity Of Bloom…it Was Like A Flute Song Forgotten In Another Existence And Remembered Again. What? How? Why? This Singing She Heard That Had Nothing To Do With Her Ears. The Rose Of The World Was Breathing Out Smell. It Followed Her Through All Her Waking Moments And Caressed Her In Her Sleep.

The Very Best Place To Be In All The World Is St. Mary's Parish, Jamaica. And The Best Spot In St. Mary's Is Port Maria, Though All Of St. Mary's Is Fine. Old Maker Put Himself To A Lot Of Trouble To Make That Part Of The Island Of Jamaica, For Everything There Is Perfect.

Learning Without Wisdom Is A Load Of Books On A Donkey's Back.

I Am Colored But I Offer Nothing In The Way Of Extenuating Circumstances Except The Fact That I Am The Only Negro In The United States Whose Grandfather On The Mother's Side Was Not An Indian Chief.

Native American

African American

If Writers Were Too Wise, Perhaps No Books Would Get Written At All. It Might Be Better To Ask Yourself 'why?”'afterwards Than Before There Is No Agony Like Bearing An Untold Story Inside You.

She Often Spoke To Falling Seeds And Said, "ah Hope You Fall On Soft Ground," Because She Had Heard Seeds Saying That To Each Other As They Passed. The Familiar People And Things Had Failed Her So She Hung Over The Gate And Looked Up The Road Towards Way Off. She Knew Now That Marriage Did Not Make Love. Janie's First Dream Was Dead, So She Became A Woman.

All My Skinfolk Ain't Kinfolk.

...she Woke Up In Time To See The Sun Sending Up Spies Ahead Of Him To Mark Out The Road Through The Dark. He Peeped Up Over The Door Sill Of The World And Made A Little Foolishness With Red.

Folklore Is The Boiled-down Juice, Or Pot-likker, Of Human Living.

I Am Her Friend, And Her Tongue Is In My Mouth. I Can Speak Her Sentiments For Her, Though Ethel Waters Can Do Very Well Indeed In Speaking For Herself.

Everybody Has Some Special Road Of Thought Along Which They Travel When They Are Alone To Themselves. And His Road Of Thought Is What Makes Every Man What He Is.

Slogans Can Be Worse Than Swords If They Are Only Put In The Right Mouths.

I Am Not Tragically Colored. There Is No Great Sorrow Dammed Up In My Soul, Nor Lurking Behind My Eyes. I Do Not Mind At All.

Please God, Please Suh, Don't Let Him Love Nobody Else But Me. Maybe Ah'm Is Uh Fool, Lawd, Lak Dey Say, But Lawd, Ah Been So Lonesome, And Ah Been Waitin', Jesus. Ah Done Waited Uh Long Time.

Affection Makes Your Spirit Slither Out From Its Concealing Spot.

Someone Is Always At My Elbow Reminding Me That I Am The Granddaughter Of Slaves. It Fails To Register Depression With Me.

Her Old Thoughts Were Going To Come In Handy Now, But New Words Would Have To Be Made And Said To Fit Them.

Grab The Broom Of Anger And Drive Off The Beast Of Fear.

I Do Not Share The Gloomy Thought That Negroes In America Are Doomed To Be Stomped Out Bodaciously, Nor Even Shackled To The Bottom Of Things. Of Course Some Of Them Will Be Tromped Out, And Some Will Always Be At The Bottom, Keeping Company With Other Bottom-folks.

The Haitian People Are Gentle And Lovable Except For Their Enormous And Unconscious Cruelty.

Perhaps I Am Just A Coward Who Loves To Laugh At Life Better Than I Do Cry With It. But When I Do Get To Crying, Boy, I Can Roll A Mean Tear.

I Thought That When They Said Atlantic Charter, That Meant Me And Everybody In Africa And Asia And Everywhere. But It Seems Like The Atlantic Is An Ocean That Does Not Touch Anywhere But North America And Europe.

Ships At A Distance Have Every Man's Wish On Board. For Some They Come In With The Tide. For Others They Sail Forever On The Same Horizon, Never Out Of Sight, Never Landing Until The Watcher Turns His Eyes Away In Resignation, His Dreams Mocked To Death By Time. That Is The Life Of Men. Now, Women Forget All Those Things They Don't Want To Remember, And Remember Everything They Don't Want To Forget. The Dream Is The Truth. Then They Act And Do Things Accordingly.

Gods Always Love The People Who Make 'em.

Grown People Know That They Do Not Always Know The Way Of Things, And Even If They Think They Know, They Do Not Know Where And How They Got The Proof.

There's Two Things Everybody Got To Find Out For Themselves: They Got To Find Out About Love, And They Got To Find Out About Living. Now, Love Is Like The Sea. It's A Moving Thing. And It's Different On Every Shore. And Living... Well... There Are Years That Ask Questions And Years That Answer.

She Didn't Read Books So She Didn't Know That She Was The World And The Heavens Boiled Down To A Drop.

So Janie Waited A Bloom Time, And A Green Time And An Orange Time.

Oh To Be A Pear Tree – Any Tree In Bloom! With Kissing Bees Singing Of The Beginning Of The World!

It's No Use Of Talking Unless People Understand What You Say.

Want Won't Kill You Half As Quick As Worry Will.

Research Is Formalized Curiosity. It Is Poking And Prying With A Purpose.

It Seems To Me To Be True That Heavens Are Placed In The Sky Because It Is The Unreachable. The Unreachable And Therefore The Unknowable Always Seems Divine--hence, Religion. People Need Religion Because The Great Masses Fear Life And Its Consequences. Its Responsibilities Weigh Heavy. Feeling A Weakness In The Face Of Great Forces, Men Seek An Alliance With Omnipotence To Bolster Up Their Feeling Of Weakness, Even Though The Omnipotence They Rely Upon Is A Creature Of Their Own Minds. It Gives Them A Feeling Of Security.

Tell Me, And Then Again Show Me, So I Can Know.

Bitterness Is The Coward's Revenge On The World For Having Been Hurt.

It Was A Weak Spot In Any Nation To Have A Large Body Of Disaffected People Within Its Confusion.

Grown People Know That They Do Not Always Know The Why Of Things, And Even If They Think They Know, They Do Not Know Where And How They Got The Proof. Hence The Irritation They Show When Children Keep On Demanding To Know If A Thing Is So And How The Grown Folks Got The Proof Of It. It Is So Troublesome Because It Is Disturbing To The Pigeonhole Way Of Life.

I Made Up My Mind To Keep My Feelings To Myself Since They Did Not Seem To Matter To Anyone Else But Me.

Sweat, Sweat, Sweat! Work And Sweat, Cry And Sweat, Pray And Sweat!

The North Has No Interest In The Particular Negro, But Talks Of Justice For The Whole. The South Has Not Interest, And Pretends None, In The Mass Of Negroes But Is Very Much Concerned About The Individual.

African American

I Do Not Weep At The World I Am Too Busy Sharpening My Oyster Knife.

Night Came Walking Through Egypt Swishing Her Black Dress.

..she Began To Stand Around The Gate And Expect Things. What Things? She Didn't Know Exactly. Her Breath Was Gusty And Short. She Knew Things That Nobody Ever Told Her. For Instance, The Words Of The Trees And The Wind. .. She Knew The World Was A Stallion Rolling In The Blue Pasture Of Ether. She Knew That God Tore Down The Old World Every Evening And Built A New One By Sun-up. It Was Wonderful To See It Take Form With The Sun And Emerge From The Gray Dust Of Its Making.

I Belong To No Race Nor Time. I Am The Eternal Feminine With Its String Of Beads.

It Is One Of The Blessings Of This World That Few People See Visions And Dream Dreams.

Most Things Are Born In The Mothering Darkness And Most Things Die. Darkness Is The Womb Of Creation, My Boy. But The Sun With His Seven Horns Of Flame Is The Father Of Life.

I Feel Most Colored When I Am Thrown Against A Sharp White Background.

I Wish I Could Buy You For What You Are Really Worth And Sell You For What You Think You're Worth. I Sure Would Make Money On The Deal.

Such As I Am, I Am A Precious Gift.

It Would Be Against All Nature For All The Negroes To Be Either At The Bottom, Top, Or In Between. We Will Go Where The Internal Drive Carries Us Like Everybody Else. It Is Up To The Individual.

Honey, De White Man Is De Ruler Of Everything As Fur As Ah Been Able Tuh Find Out. Maybe It's Some Place Way Off In De Ocean Where De Black Man Is In Power, But We Don't Know Nothin' But What We See.

Every Tub Sits On Its Bottom.

To A Haughty Belly, Kindness Is Hard To Swallow And Harder To Digest.

When Janie Looked Out Of Her Door She Saw The Drifting Mists Gathered In The West -- That Cloud Field Of The Sky -- To Arm Themselves With Thunders And March Forth Against The World. Louder And Higher And Lower And Wider The Sound And Motion Spread, Mounting, Sinking, Darking.

No Man May Make Another Free.

I Have A Strong Suspicion . That Much That Passes For Constant Love Is A Golded- Up Moment Walking In Its Sleep.

Don't You Love Nobody Better'n You Do Yo'self. Do, You'll Be Dying Befo' Yo' Time Is Out.

I Feel Most Colored When I Am Thrown Against A Sharp White Background........beside The Waters Of The Hudson" I Feel My Race. Among The Thousand White Persons, I Am A Dark Rock Surged Upon, And Overswept, But Through It All, I Remain Myself. When Covered By The Waters, I Am; And The Ebb But Reveals Me Again." How It Feels To Be Colored Me

So The Brother In Black Offers To These United States The Source Of Courage That Endures, And Laughter.

And I Can't Die Easy Thinking Maybe The Menfolks White Or Black Is Making A Spit Cup Out Of You. Have Some Sympathy For Me. Put Me Down Easy, Janie, I'm A Cracked Plate.

When A Man Keeps Beating Me To The Draw Mentally, He Begins To Get Glamorous.

Sometimes, I Feel Discriminated Against, But It Does Not Make Me Angry. It Merely Astonishes Me. How Can Any Deny Themselves The Pleasure Of My Company? It's Beyond Me.

She Stood There Until Something Fell Off The Shelf Inside Her.

She's Got Those Big Black Eyes With Plenty Shiny White In Them That Makes Them Shine Like Brand New Money And She Knows What God Gave Women Eyelashes For, Too. Her Hair Is Not What You Might Call Straight. It's Negro Hair, But It's Got A Kind Of White Flavor. Like The Piece Of String Out Of A Ham. It's Not Ham At All, But It's Been Around Ham And Got The Flavor.

I Will Fight For My Country, But I Will Not Lie For Her.

Tain't No Use In You Cryin' . . . But Folks Is Meant To Cry 'bout Somethin' Or Other. Better Leave Things De Way Dey Is. Youse Young Yet. No Tellin' Whut Mout Happen Befo' You Die.

Friendship Is A Mysterious And Ocean-bottom Thing. Who Can Know The Outer Ranges Of It? Perhaps No Human Being Has Ever Explored Its Limits.

The Spirit Of The Marriage Left The Bedroom And Took To Living In The Parlor.

I Been Through Living For Years. I Just Ain't Dead Yet.

The Sun, The Hero Of Every Day, The Impersonal Old Man That Beams As Brightly On Death As On Birth, Came Up Every Morning.

Happiness Is Nothing But Everyday Living Seen Through A Veil.

There Is A Basin In The Mind Where Words Float Around On Thought And Thought On Sound And Sight. Then There Is A Depth Of Thought Untouched By Words, And Deeper Still A Gulf Of Formless Feelings Untouched By Thought.

If You Haven't Got It, You Can't Show It. If You Have Got It, You Can't Hide It.

Following Your Own Path

Love, I Find, Is Like Singing.

I Note That The Africa Loves To Depict The Grace Of Reptiles.

Why Fear? The Stuff Of My Being Is Matter, Ever Changing, Ever Moving, But Never Lost; So What Need Of Denominations And Creeds To Deny Myself The Comfort Of All My Fellow Men? The Wide Belt Of The Universe Has No Need For Finger-rings. I Am One With The Infinite And Need No Other Assurance.

There Are Years That Ask Questions And Years That Answer.

I Regret All Of My Books.

When I Pitched Headforemost Into The World I Landed In The Crib Of Negroism.

Now They Got To Look Into Me Loving Tea Cake And See Whether It Was Done Right Or Not! They Don't Know If Life Is A Mess Of Corn-meal Dumplings, And If Love Is A Bed-quilt!

Lack Of Power And Opportunity Passes Off Too Often For Virtue.

Mystery Is The Essence Of Divinity

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