I never had an occasion to question color, therefore, I only saw myself as what I was... a human being.

Living consciously involves being genuine; it involves listening and responding to others honestly and openly; it involves being in the moment.

You don't have to become something you're not to be better than you were.

To simply wake up every morning a better person than when I went to bed.

I was the only Black person on the set. It was unusual for me to be in a circumstance in which every move I made was tantamount to representation of 18 million people.

A person doesn't have to change who he is to become better.

I do know that I'm responsible not for what happens, but for what I make of it.

I am the me I choose to be.

You don't have to become something that you aren't to become better than you are.

I set my star so high that I would constantly be in motion toward it.

I always wanted to be someone better the next day than I was the day before.

I would write my tears, weeping out my pain - I would empty my veins for ink.

I want my music to do the explaining.

A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lillies of the swamp.

I have learned, as I wrote, that history must be discovered, not declared. It's an admission that one grows in life.

The only true voyage of discovery, . . . would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes.

Play without fear, and you will be successful.

...in any society, Law is an illusory concept that works only when everyone voluntarily agrees to live by it.

Ah! how annoying that the law doesn't allow a woman to change husbands just as one does shirts.

It felt like a new day.

I have a garden, and I collect different heirloom seeds from different neighbors.