The intensity with which young people live demands that they "blank out" as often as possible.

I am convinced that most people do not grow up...We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias.

I'm grateful to intelligent people. That doesn't mean educated. That doesn't mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old people used to call 'mother wit' means intelligence that you had in your mother's womb. That's what you rely on. You know what's right to do.

When members of a society wish to secure that society's rich heritage they cherish their arts and respect their artists. The esteem with which we regard the multiple cultures offered in our country enhances our possibilities for healthy survival and continued social development.

My life has been one great big joke, A dance that's walked, A song that's spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke, When I think about myself.

At one time in my life, from the time I was seven until I was about 13, I didn't speak. I only spoke to my brother. The reason I didn't speak: I had been molested, and I told the name of the molester to my brother who told it to the family.

love life, engage in it, give it all you've got. love it with a passion, because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it

I was born in St. Louis but lived there just for a few minutes in my life.

I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, 'No. No, I'm finished. Bye.' And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won't do that.

I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that's walked a song that's spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.

If you want what you're saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody's life. Your own, first.

At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: 'I'm with you kid. Let's go.'

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.

There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.

Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.

I thank God I'm myself and for the life I'm given to live and for friends and lovers and beloveds, and I thank God for knowing that all those people have already paid for me.

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.