My father came back one day and forced my mother to submit to him. He raped her, holding a knife.

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.

Extraordinary magic is woven through ordinary life. Look around!

It takes effort and concern to really think about things.

I believe in fate and what's meant to be mine will be mine, and if it's not in my lap, then it's not mine.

A problem becomes a problem only if you believe it to be so. And often others see you as you see yourself.

All people see fires, storms, explosions, or landscapes; but how many feel the flames, the lightnings, the whirlwinds, or the harmony? How many have an inner beauty that tinges their melancholy?

Education doesn't cease when you leave college or leave the university. Education is a lifetime process.

What right have you to take the word wealth, which originally meant well-being, and degrade and narrow it by confining it to certain sorts of material objects measured by money.

The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.

Don't play safe. Cook outside of your comfort zone, otherwise you're just going to do the same things.

I am sentimental,’ she said. ‘I could dissect a koala but not its baby. I like the words damozel, eglantine, elegant. I love when you kiss my elongated white hand.