"My mother always told me,"hide your face-people are looking at you".I would reply,"it does not matter;I am also looking at them"

"Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster."

“Leave something for someone but dont leave someone for something.”

My parents taught me service - not by saying, but by doing. That was my culture, the culture of my family.

It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.

We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.

The most beautiful make-up of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy.

The best and most beautiful things in life cannot be seen, not touched, but are felt in the heart.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.

From infancy, I have relied on the fiercely sweet spirits of black men; and this is abundantly clear in my work.

If you foolishly ignore beauty, then you will soon find yourself without it.

What we like to think of ourselves and what we really are rarely have much in common....

Never be the only one, except, possibly, in your own home.

I have never felt that the one thing that I am 'known for' is what I am.

I never think of the future – it comes soon enough.

I don't think there's anything unique about human intelligence.

The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with joy are goodness, beauty, and truth. 

Fiction is such a world of freedom, it's wonderful. If you want someone to fly, they can fly.

I failed, got back up. I failed, got back up.

You don't build a great castle just all at once.

Equality for women is progress for all.

Love may not make the world go round, but I must admit that it makes the ride worthwhile.

I had no proof that I had the stuff to be an artist, though I hungered to be one.

Life is short is what some niggaz said; not if you measure life - by how one lives and what he did.

I want to be important. By being different. And these girls are all the same.

If we surrendered to earth's intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Anything that's expanding the mind and heart is happiness. But it's not a goal.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

The moral systems of religion, I think, are super important.

“Wisdom is doing now what you are going to be happy with later on”