And my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter-skinned.

No matter where you're from, your dreams are valid.

What I've learned from myself is that I don't have to be anybody else. Myself is good enough.

You can't eat beauty, it doesn't sustain you. What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion, for yourself and those around you. That kind of beauty inflamed the heart and merchants the soul.

You fail, and then what? Life goes on. It's only when you risk failure that you discover things.

I realized that beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be.

What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion: for yourself and for those around you.

There is no shame in black beauty.

You have to allow for the impossible to be possible.

To be human is to seek perfection, and find joy in never attaining it.

I discovered that joy is not the negation of pain, but rather acknowledging the presence of pain and feeling happiness in spite of it.

Trying to meet new women, it's always a little more difficult as opposed to calling somebody I knew that's single and trying to rebuild that connection.

Has it ever occurred to you that nothing occurs to God?

Character is the backbone of our human culture. Music is the flowering of character.

Tell the people of all lands Let's get together the future is in our hands. United nations have to agree To say no to war, and yes to peace.

Just go to bed, now. Quickly. Quickly and slowly.

The psychic scars caused by believing that you are ugly leave a permanent mark on your personality.

Let's let people live their lives and do it the way they want to do it.

Americans believe with all their heart, the vast majority of them, and the vast majority of Floridians, that the United States of America is simply the single greatest nation in all of human history.

Shun the praise of men and love the one who, in the fear of the Lord, reprimands you.

Tears water our growth.