Most people come out of their Ph.D. experience trying to prove themselves, trying to get ahead, trying to get published. You're scared everybody else is going to do your research and get your topic.

Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.

If you're in a coalition and you're comfortable, you know it's not a broad enough coalition.

I was at the Smithsonian for twenty years, and I'm still at the Smithsonian as a curator emeritus, and I still plan to figure out what that means for me at this point in my life

There is nowhere you can go and only be with people who are like you. Give it up.

If, in moving through your life, you find yourself lost, go back to the last place where you knew who you were, and what you were doing, and start from there.

If every moment is sacred and if you are amazed and in awe most of the time when you find yourself breathing and not crazy, then you are in a state of constant thankfulness, worship and humility.

If we dwell in a community that is comfortable, then it's probably not broad enough a coalition.

Mothering/nurturing is a vital force and process establishing relationships throughout the universe.

The voice I have now, I got the first time I sang in a movement meeting, after I got out of jail... and I'd never heard it before in my life.

When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.

I have no name, " she purred. "I'm whoever the keepers of my fate tell me to be.

Inspiration moves one from Pessimism to Optimism, from Doubt to Faith, from Despair to Hope, and from Darkness to Light!

Fake people talk about other people being fake. Real people worry about their business, and no one else's.

The boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but him had fled The flame that lit the battle's wreck Shone round him o'er the dead.

I am a feminist and I have no problems being called that.

My humour and my work ethic definitely come from my Scottish side, and I have to say the sense of humour doesn't really translate when I'm in America.

Although Kurt Vonnegut may not be considered a humor writer, 'Breakfast of Champions' is one of the funniest books I've ever read.

A male director doesn't come to situations the same way that a female director would.

Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead.

Our family is very tight. Just like any family, we have our ups and downs, but the love is always going to be there. I try to go to my parents house as much as I can.