I say if it's going to be done, let's do it. Let's not put it in the hands of fate. Let's not put it in the hands of someone who doesn't know me. I know me best. Then take a breath and go ahead.

You leave home to seek your fortune and, when you get it, you go home and share it with your family.

Completeness? Happiness? These words don't come close to describing my emotions. There truly is nothing I can say to capture what motherhood means to me, particularly given my medical history.

I don't let people use me. That's why I like a small number of people in my life. The more people in my life, the more complex it becomes, so I just try to keep it at a minimum.

Time has nothing to do with the gifts that the gods give you; it's what you do.

I'm picking and choosing in terms of the stress factor. If it's not fun, I'm not going to do it.

I dont think being black has held me back at all. Being black makes you strong.

If I could be doing anything, I'd be laying on the floor in my birthday suit eating junk food and watching something dumb on TV.

If you have your own agenda and your own style and you don't easily conform to what the masses are doing, you're looked upon as being difficult. Whereas, I think of it as just being an individual.

Long tresses down to the floor can be beautiful, but learn to love what you have.

Historically, in my generation, all of my heroes and heroines have had issues and problems. We all do.

We pray that as you walk the paths of life you will walk in ways that are straight with the strength to conform even though those paths be narrow.

Saturdays and Sundays, America in the year 2009 does not in some ways differ significantly from the country that existed almost 50 years ago. This is truly sad.

I was never an A student, but I was really well behaved until I was 13 or so.

In a new poll 54 percent believed President Bush exaggerated the size of Iraq's missile threat. Hey, he's a guy.

Why do I wear tennis shoes? That's two questions. Do I wear tennis shoes? The answer to that question is, "Yes." "Why?" That's a question philosophers have been pondering for centuries.

There's something about this place, about Madison and Wisconsin and the Midwest, that's really comforting, ... Malcolm in the Middle.

How pleased we are to have our eyes opened but how easily we close them again.

It's the same each time with progress. First they ignore you, then they say you're mad, then dangerous, then there's a pause and then you can't find anyone who disagrees with you.

There are other places, surely, for other people, but for me there is one place, Ann 
Arbor, for there it was I discovered what lifes bright possibilities were.