"I've heard 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' read, and I tell you Mrs. Stowe's pen hasn't begun to paint what slavery is as I have seen it at the far South. I've seen de real thing, and I don't want to see it on no stage or in no theater."

"Read my letter to the old folks, and give my love to them, and tell my brothers to be always watching unto prayer, and when the good old ship of Zion comes along, to be ready to step aboard."

"I think there's many a slaveholder'll get to Heaven. They don't know better. They acts up to the light they have."

"I would fight for my liberty so long as my strength lasted, and if the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me."

"There is no such thing as a little freedom. Either you are all free, or you are not free."

"Marriage is another trap. If you are someone who likes independence, it's another stamp against that. And you have to swear to fidelity."

"My desire to curtail undue freedom of speech extends only to such public areas as restaurants, airports, streets, hotel lobbies, parks, and department stores. Verbal exchanges between consenting adults in private are as of little interest to me as they probably are to them."

"And so, at the age of thirty, I had successively disgraced myself with three fine institutions, each of which had made me free of its full and rich resources, had trained me with skill and patience, and had shown me nothing but forbearance and charity when I failed in trust."