“There's an old Southern saying that if you're worried about your weight, clothes, or getting old, then you don't have any real problems.”

“...Mama used to say that when you don't know what to do, do nothing. She meant you can try too hard to solve a problem. If you give it a little time, the answer might just come to you plain as day.”

“When people ask me how we've lived past one hundred, I say, 'Honey, we never married. We never had husbands to worry us to death!A. Elizabeth (Bessie) Delany”

“Maybe freedom means defining yourself any way you want to be.”

“Their story, as the Delany sisters like to say, is not meant as "black" or "women's" history, but American history. It belongs to all of us. (From the Preface of "Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years)”

“...one person can come along and change your life, and that being a misfit, as I was, doesn't mean you won't find friends and your place in the world.”

“...I could see the genius in allowing future to evolve. You could create momentum. You could launch something and see where it goes. You couldn't line everything up, like so many dominoes, and make everything fall into place.”