Gripping my arm, Mother held it in the orange-blue flame. My skin seemed to explode from the heat.

Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul.

To help yourself, you must be yourself. Be the best that you can be. When you make a mistake, learn from it, pick yourself up and move on.

Even in its darkest passages, the heart is unconquerable. It is important that the body survives, but it is more meaningful that the human spirit prevails.

When you please others in hopes of being accepted, you lose you self-worth in the process.

It is important for people to know that no matter what lies in their past, they can overcome the dark side and press on the a brighter world.

Everyone picked on me in school because I was in foster care.

I still love my former wife, I won't call her my ex-wife.

Ask yourself: was there anything I could have done to prevent the situation? If the answer is yes, do something now and become a better person for it.

You have to understand that in a person's life there are a few precious moments in which decisions, choices that you make now, will affect you for the rest of your life.

You can be a victim of cancer, or a survivor of cancer. It's a mindset.

AUNT SHADIE:I see you - and don't worry, you're not white.ROSE:I'm pretty sure I'm white. I'm English.AUNT SHADIE:White is blindness - it has nothing to do with the colour of your skin.

Death is the final dance of dreams, desires, loves and hopes.

What's gone and what's past help Should be past grief.

It's impossible to put yourself first when you're a mom.

When all your desires are distilled; You will cast just two votes: To love more, And be happy.

I like to wake up each morning felling a new man.

You're saying things you can't take back. And you don't even mean them.

It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o'clock on Sunday morning.

True guilt is guilt at the obligation one owes to oneself to be oneself. False guilt is guilt felt at not being what other people feel one ought to be or assume that one is.

I curl up, make myself smaller, try to disappear entirely. Wrapped in silence, I slide my bracelet that reads 'mentally disoriented' around and around my wrist.