Mary Ellen Pleasant

"I am a whole theatre in myself."

"“You know my cause well. My cause was the cause of freedom and equality for myself and for my people and I’d rather be a corpse than a coward."

"“I was a girl full of smartness who let books alone and studied men and women a good deal … I have always noticed that when I have something to say, people listen. They never go to sleep on me."

"“They paid the newspapers to malign and to vilify me and to blacken my character, but I did not reply to their assaults because I had staunch supports in the City and, so long as they supported me, I did not care one snap of one little finger for public opinion.”"

"Some say that words are made to reveal feelings; I say that words are made to conceal them.”"