Dame Poverty gave me my name, And Pain godfathered me.

The truth is... everything counts. Everything. Everything we do and everything we say. Everything helps or hurts; everything adds to or takes away from someone else.

There is no secret to success except hard work and getting something indefinable which we call 'the breaks.

I was reared in the conservative atmosphere of a Methodist parsonage.

If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET.

What is Africa to me: Copper sun or scarlet sea, Jungle star or jungle track, Strong bronzed men, or regal black Women from whose loins I sprang When the birds of Eden sang?

We shall not always plant while others reap

The key to all strange things is in thy heart..../ My spirit has come home, that sailed the doubtful seas.

My poetry has become the way of my giving out what music is within me.

We were not made to eternally weep.

For we must be one thing or the other, an asset or a liability, the sinew in your wing to help you soar, or the chain to bind you to earth.

Matter is plastic in the face of Mind.

Speaking from the heart is simple. Listening wholeheartedly, however, is much, much more difficult and most rare.

All great art contains at its center contemplation, a dynamic contemplation.

It's been amazing how this crazy career has been created. I feel that it's been given to me. I wouldn't be anywhere without Victoria's Secret.

Today, nearly 40 percent of a senior's healthcare spending is on pharmaceutical medications.

I have a very haute couture way of working.

If you catch me saying 'I am a serious actor,' I beg you to slap me.

Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.

Always aspire to become the next you, not someone else

Companies that put a mandated parental leave in place save money in the first year, FIRST YEAR. Because they don't have to hire to replace the woman.