I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make my marriage vows mean what they say. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh.

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

A finished person is a boring person.

There is a little boy inside the man who is my brother... Oh, how I hated that little boy. And how I love him too.

After all those years as a woman hearing 'not thin enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not this enough, not that enough,' almost overnight I woke up one morning and thought, 'I'm enough.'

Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.

There is a lot of talk now about metal detectors and gun control. Both are good things. But they are no more a solution than forks and spoons are a solution to world hunger.

Look back, to slavery, to suffrage, to integration and one thing is clear. Fashions in bigotry come and go. The right thing lasts.

You are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life ... Your entire life ... Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.

America is a country that seems forever to be toddler or teenager, at those two stages of human development characterized by conflict between autonomy and security.

Every culture has some ritual for joining two people together and making them stay that way, and ours is giving tax breaks.

History is the stories we tell about the past.

When you are young your body cannot handle alcohol, and when you get old your mind cannot handle it. Either way, alcohol has its way.

I'm not like a high intellectual. That's the thing.

I don't think if you take somebody's temperature a lot that will make them well.

I talk in subjects and verbs, and sort of wind around in concentric circles until I get far enough away from the beginning so that I can call it the end, and it ends.

Not all civil servants admire strong political leadership. But if you want to change things for the better you need strong political leadership.

Use different basketball offensive alignments to cause confusion for the other team.

A sponge sees everything? A sponge sees nothing.

So long as the Zulu people are here, clearly I will still have a role to play in this country.