The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself.

I think the more we know the better we are. I mean not just facts. The more we know about each other, the closer we are to learn something about our selves.

Language. I loved it. And for a long time I would think of myself, of my whole body, as an ear.

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.

It is better to control oneself, if one can, and not hit back. But on certain occasions, it is imperative to defend oneself. I don't think it's fair to ask anybody not to defend herself or himself.

I write because I am a Black woman, listening attentively to her people.

What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me.

If I'm the people's poet, then I ought to be in people's hands - and, I hope, in their heart.

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.

Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.

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.

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

It is this belief in a power larger than myself and other than myself which allows me to venture into the unknown and even the unknowable.

If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?

I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.

I sustain myself with the love of family.

I am a Woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal Woman, that's me.

On this platform of peace, we can create a language to translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay - and rise!

We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.

Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will.

Valor consists in the power of self recovery.

A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist.

“That’s the trouble with the world. We all despise ourselves.”