I wanted to be with the kind of people I'd grown up with, but you can't go back to them and be one of them again, no matter how hard you try.

Basically there is no difference between whites and blacks, browns and yellows. I decided to think no more of people as Northerners and Southerners.

Whenever I played Columbus, Ohio, I dropped in to see my close friend, a medium who had mysterious powers. Her Indian guide was Mohawk.

We are all gifted. That is our inheritance.

We never had a bathtub. Mom would bathe me in the wooden or tin washtub in the kitchen, or in a big lard can.

I am somebody cause God don't make no junk

Many people know how to criticize, but few know how to praise.

Only those who are being burned know what fire is like.

Today or any day that phone may ring and bring good news.

There was one emotional outlet my people always had when they had the blues. That was singing.

All the men in my life have been two things: an epic and an epidemic.

Many relationships are give & take but the most successful ones are give & give.

I travel a lot. A lot, a lot. I don't have a single passport that doesn't have extra pages on it.

Basically, I think that there are some characters that you can just allow the truth of your character as a human being in your real life to come through

I'm not good enough as a person and definitely not good enough as a writer.

Filling my mind with pleasant thoughts is the quickest road to health.

All I want is to be more famous than anything or anyone.

In these times of suffering prayer is of even more help.

They that believe that ignorance is bliss, are ignorant and have never known bliss.

When employers no longer offer secure full-time employment with benefits, then it's hard to expect employees to be loyal, engaged, and maximally productive.

Temptation: the fiend at my elbow.