"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 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 seems to me that the human race is like a lot of children playing in a nursery, and the grown-ups are not coming."

"There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you."

"To be human, one must be able to laugh. To be human, one must be able to weep."