A diamond earns its sparkle from the pressure it endures.

A genuine smile is one of the world’s rarest treasures.

A fish that is afraid of drowning in a river is ignorant of its gifts.

It is in the storm, not the calm, that a rainbow is born.

A determined seed cannot be hidden from the world, not even by dirt.

Calm skies don't make skillful eagles.

If you cry in the rain, only the sky will see your tears.

Birds keep singing beautiful songs, even if they have no audience.

Today's storms help you appreciate tomorrow’s sunshine.

Train the ears to hear more, the eyes to see more, the hands to do more, the feet to accomplish more, the mind to think more, the heart to feel more, and the soul to love more.

If you have shed a thousand tears, expect a thousand blessings.

Storytelling is not something we do. Storytelling is who we are.

Some are born old maids, some achieve old maidenhood, and some have old maidenhood thrust upon them, " parodied Miss Lavendar whimsically.

Congress is functioning the way the Founding Fathers intended-not very well. They understood that if you move too quickly, our democracy will be less responsible to the majority.

It was always assumed I would be a professor. I grew up thinking it.

I never really made any money and it certainly cost me more to take photographs than I got for them.

Had Shakespeare listened to the news of Duncans death in a tavern or heard the knocking on his own bedroom door after he had finished the writing of Macbeth?

We won't just automatically click our heels and follow the Americans.

I love women. They're the best thing ever created. If they want to be like men and come down to our level, that's fine.

I had to fight all my life to survive. They were all against me, but I beat the bastards and left them in the ditch.

Unfortunately there was one thing that the white South feared more than Negro dishonesty, ignorance, and incompetency, and that was Negro honesty, knowledge, and efficiency.