“There were two immediate results of my forced loneliness: I began to find company in books, and greater pleasure in music.”

“Its no disgrace to be black, but its often very inconvenient.”

“American musicians, instead of investigating ragtime, attempt to ignore it, or dismiss it with a contemptuous word. But that has always been the course of scholasticism in every branch of art. What...”

“Whose starboard eyeSaw chariot 'swing low'?”

“The battle was first waged over the right of the Negro to be classed as a human being with a soul; later, as to whether he had sufficient intellect to master even the rudiments of learning; and tod...”

“Young man, young man, your arm's too short to box with God.”

“...some nights I'd sneak out and listen to the radio in my Dad's old Chevy - children need solitude - they don't teach that in school...”

“Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations, That is known as the Children's Hour.”

“...If I ever got sloppy and maudlin, it would be for the streets of my childhoodbut no self- respecting writer should ever eulogize a slum...”

“I don't care what you say to me. I care what you share with me.”

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone wont either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are...”

“Never knew what a friendship was, Never knew how to really love, You can't be what I need you to, & I don't know why I fuck with you”