I am the product of many whose lives have touched mine, from the famous, distinguished, and powerful to the little known and the poor.

Greatness is not measured by what a man or woman accomplishes, but by the opposition he or she has overcome to reach his goals.

Progress comes from caring more about what needs to be done than about who gets the credit

Civil rights are civil rights. There are no persons who are not entitled to their civil rights... We have to recognize that we have a long way to go, but we have to go that way together.

When you're a black woman, you seldom get to do what you just want to do; you always do what you have to do.

Without community service, we would not have a strong quality of life. It's important to the person who serves as well as the recipient. It's the way in which we ourselves grow and develop.

We've got to work to save our children and do it with full respect for the fact that if we do not, no one else is going to do it.

There is no contradiction between effective law enforcement and respect for civil and human rights.

My mother helped me understand how not to show off what I knew, but how to use it so that others might benefit.

If the time is not ripe, we have to ripen the time.

No one will do for you what you need to do for yourself. We cannot afford to be separate. We have to see that all of us are in the same boat.

I was always going to the bookcase for another sip of the divine specific.

How we take it for granted – those trivial conversations

Learning and knowing something is cool, but superb knowledge comes when you leave your books and become the inner world's friend.

A child's name is his portal to the world.

But I'm very careful with opinions because I never know what the truth is. When I read what the press says about me, I don't really believe what it says about other people.

Like begets like; honesty begets honesty; trust, trust; and so on.

I don't care what anybody says, I think that George Bush is absolutely the right president to oversea the end of the world.

Despite being able to demonstrate a very large audience, major advertisers at first wouldn't touch Limbaugh.

I go out and look for a good story to tell and if I like it enough and I decide to direct it, I become dangerously involved in becoming a part of that story.

I like mixing things up, doing some silly stuff, along with serious stuff, up tempo, and some quiet things ... it keeps me interested.