I wanted to write a novel that would make others feel the history: the pain and fear that black people have had to live through in order to endure.

I was raised Baptist, and I like the fact that I got my conscience installed early.

All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change.

In order to rise From its own ashes A phoenix First Must Burn.

To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.

Drowning people Sometimes die Fighting their rescuers.

Kindness eases change Love quiets fear

When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing.

We're all capable of climbing so much higher than we usually permit ourselves to suppose.

There is no end To what a living world Will demand of you.

Be who you are and not who someone else thinks you ought to be.

Better poetry than riches, Better poverty than fortunes.

My spirit is free. My heart is taken.

The secular world looks to the church and to its chagrin, finds no love, no life, no laughter, no hope and no happiness.

I have dreams that I will reach balance in my life, and, at forty-one, I have none.

Act boldly and unforeseen forces will come to your aid.

Of course we're all programmed genetically to some extent. But the "selfish gene" thesis doesn't explain everything.

A star needs all the rest she can get.

You should point to the whole man Jesus and say, That is God.

Life and death appear more certainly ours than whatsoever else; and yet hardly can that be called ours, which comes without our knowledge, and goes without it.

Possibly the greatest waste in life is the gap between what you are and what you could become.