Most of us think prison is a place where bad people go - which is what I thought for a long time - until you really start to look inside the system and you see, this is not right.

If your dream only includes you, it's too small.

Be passionate and move forward with gusto every single hour of every single day until you reach your goal.

Figure out what you need to do to be the heroine of your own story.

Don't wait for permission to do something creative.

If you're doing something outside of dominant culture there's not an easy place for you. You will have to do it yourself.

When you're in your lane, there's no traffic.

We have to find new ways to work without permission, new ways to turn corners and go through doors that are closed off to us to create our own audiences and our own material independently.

I've passed along some advice that Oprah [Winfrey] gave to me: When something bad is happening, it's not happening to you; it's happening for you.

Stop asking, start doing.

If your work is solid, it really doesn't matter what people you know because good work starts to rise to the top.

It all I can do not to cry. I make myself wood I say to myself, Celie, you a tree. That's how I come to know trees fear man.

you act out what it feels like to be the one who doesn’t belong. And you act it out by trying to do to others what has been done to you.

Be content with what you are and wish not change not dread your last day not long for it.

The only place you're sure to find love is at the end of a letter from your mother.

I have no interest in Trump TV. I hear it all over the place.

You don't remember the times your dad held your handle bars. You remember the day he let go.

There are holes in the sky Where the rain gets in, But they're ever so small That's why rain is thin.

All photographs aspire to the condition of being memorable - that is, unforgettable.

Katniss, there is no District Twelve.

I'd rather have a kid come up to me and tell me that he loves dinosaurs or he loves airplanes or he likes training dogs or I like Shakespeare. I mean, just something.