One of the great needs of Negro children is to have books about themselves and their lives that can help them be proud.

Books -where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas

Uncle Willy's Chocolate Factory ... with lots of help from really good assistants.

I was unhappy for a long time, and very lonesome, living with my grandmother. Then it was that books began to happen to me, and I began to believe in nothing but books and the wonderful world in books — where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas.

We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line.

Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people - the beauty within themselves.