"The most interesting form of dress is the result of a consciousness of your own power."
Beauty
"Folkways is the way a society has found that works."
"Great words make great deeds possible."
Inspiration
"Sanctified. So Sanctified that even for the matter of a mere pleasure party, she wished to do everything decently and in order."
Faith
"I learned long ago to wear my crown so well that I would never have to take it off."
"Every path has its puddles."
Life
"The competition from the great body of oral material and the so-called savage texts proves that we are not one thing."
History
"Tell her that she can touch you now, if she wants to."
Relationships
"The object of every true prayer is power."
Faith
"Human nature will not flourish, any more than will a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a time, in the same worn-out soil."
Change
"The eyes are not here; there are no eyes here, in this valley of dying stars."
Literature
"I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality."
Freedom
"Being alive, let alone just existing, takes a tremendous amount of energy."
Work
"There is something about poverty that smells like death."
Justice
"I am my mother's daughter, and the drums of her yesterday have a beat in my of today."
Family
"Beauty is not just a visual thing, it is a form of power."
Art
"I stood in the water and felt the moon pull the tide in my chest."
Nature
"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."
"All ballads are sex ballads."
Music
"I want a busy life, a just mind, and a timely death."
Dreams
"That's what makes you all right."
Kindness
"You can never really move if you don't have a vision for yourself."
Imagination
"The days may come and go, and your travels may take you to countries unknown, but your heart will always lead you home."
Peace
"Dis is the danger of dis great democracy—dat you are not born yesterday."
Politics
"You know, honey, us colored folks is a long way off from being civilized."
"The sea hisses along the beach."
Nature
"It may be that the dog has always been a symbol of faithfulness and loyalty."
"Eatonville is the city of five lakes; it is surrounded by water."
"Tell them that I was a writer, a teller of stories."
Literature
"All honest men are good; all honest men are brave."