We Build Our Temples For Tomorrow, Strong

Folks, I'm Telling You, Birthing Is Hard And Dying Is Mean- So Get Yourself A Little Loving In Between.

Humor Is When The Joke's On You But Hits The Other Fellow First -- Before It Boomerangs.

We Younger Negro Artists Who Create Now Intend To Express Our Individual Dark-skinned Selves Without Fear Or Shame. If White People Are Pleased, We Are Glad. If They Are Not, It Doesn't Matter. We Know We Are Beautiful. And Ugly Too. The Tom-tom Cries And The Tom-tom Laughs. If Colored People Are Pleased, We Are Glad. If They Are Not, It Doesn't Matter Either. We Build Our Temples For Tomorrow, Strong As We Know How, And We Stand On Top Of The Mountain, Free Within Ourselves.

This Morning I Paid Seventy Cents For Two Little Old Dried-up Slivers Of Bacon And One Cockeyed Egg. It Took Me Till Noon To Get My Appetite Back.

I've Been Scared And Battered. My Hopes The Wind Done Scattered. Snow Has Friz Me, Sun Has Baked Me, Looks Like Between 'em They Done Tried To Make Me Stop Laughin', Stop Lovin', Stop Livin'-- But I Don't Care! I'm Still Here!