Countee Cullen

“I was reared in the conservative atmosphere of a Methodist parsonage.”

“So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.”

“There is no secret to success except hard work and getting something indefinable which we call 'the breaks.' In order for a writer to succeed, I suggest three things - read and write - and wait.”

“Your love to me was like an unread book.”

“Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: To make a poet black, and bid him sing.”

“I have a rendezvous with life.”

“For we must be one thing or the other, an asset or a liability, the sinew in your wing to help you soar, or the chain to bind you to earth.”