I think there's no sacrifice too great for family, whether it's career, singing, whatever.

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.

For life in general there is but one decree: youth is a blunder manhood a struggle old age a regret.

Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function.

A little candor never leaves me. It is what protects me.

I'm crafting a vision of my life that involves creativity. And Cuban society allows me to do this. I know it's harder in the U.S. where so many people are just grateful to have a job.

My hope is that my novels reflect the reality of a world where good and evil exist, imperfect people make mistakes, but a perfect Heavenly Father offers forgiveness and second chances.

And we all vied, in saving face, to be the greatest student of human nature, the person with the quickest sense of humor.

What I need to do to heal myself and to be assuring and allay the fears of others and to heal them, if they had any heart wounds from something I may have said.

The threat is generally more terrifying than the thing itself.

If we really want to pray we must first learn to listen, for in the silence of the heart God speaks.

Experience, as we know, has a way of boiling over, and making us correct our present formulas.