I speak to the Black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition--about what we can endure, dream, fail at and survive.

Nothing will work unless you do.

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.

We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.

Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. Please remember that your difficulties do not define you. They simply strengthen your ability to overcome.

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style

If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.

You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I'll rise!

Love, too, was just a question of time

I will go to the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes, but I shall go not as a member of the MacHeath clan — no, I shall go as a free runner. I reject you. I deny you, I refuse and repudiate you as my clan.

I suppose kids probably know less boredom these days - or at least a different kind of boredom.

I really love good food occasionally, but I need time to enjoy it and I need to be hungry.

You know the old saying kill him with kindness that's the way you shut me up. With a compliment, I have nothing to prove.

A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea.” “That’s only three.” Alvis finished his wine. “You have to do disappointment twice.

You can be a model to the masses, but to go to the higher levels of influence, you have to work with individuals.

Love is life sharing, not for hurt, Love is alive both not ambiguous. Love is whole life, not an affair.

It is kind of cliche to say you like a man to smell like a man, but I really do. My husband can go three or four days without taking a shower and the man never smells.

The craft, the writing of a song, is about creating a story, a life story, a world within three minutes, but that's the frame, if you like, the picture frame. That fascinates me.