“Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it.”

“Black women were armed, black women were dangerous and the less money they had the deadlier the weapon they chose.”

“I dont want to be a free nigger; I want to be a free man.Dont we all. Look. Be what you want--- white or black. Choose. But if you choose black, you got to act black, meaning draw your manhood upqu...”

“Not like the me was some tough somebody, or somebody she had put together for show. But like, like somebody she favored and could count on. A secret somebody you didn't have to feel sorry for or ha...”

“I laughed but before I could agree with the hairdressers that she was crazy, she said, 'What's the world for if you can't make it up the way you want it?'" 'The way I want it?'" 'Yeah. The way you ...”

“We women, me and you. Tell me something real. Dont just say Im grown and ought to know. I dont. Im fifty and I dont know nothing. What about it? Do I stay with him? I want to, I think. I want well,...”

“There are only two things: love, all sorts of love, with pretty girls, and the music of New Orleans or Duke Ellington. Everything else ought to go, because everything else is ugly. ”

“If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.”

“Jazz is not just 'Well, man, this is what I feel like playing.' It's a very structured thing that comes down from a tradition and requires a lot of thought and study.”

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect fo...”

“Of all the bright cruel lies they tell you, the cruelest is the one called love.”

“Don't cry, I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is.”

“The constant reprimands made me hyperconscious of my own performance, and so instead of getting rid of self, I had become embedded in the egoism I was supposed to transcend. Now I was beginning to ...”

“Silence is the mother of truth.”

“Silence is a powerful tool.”