Oh, Celie, unbelief is a terrible thing. And so is the hurt we cause others unknowingly.

I have fallen in love with the imagination. And if you fall in love with the imagination, you understand that it is a free spirit. It will go anywhere, and it can do anything.

Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.

No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.

Look closely at the present you are constructing: it should look like the future you are dreaming.

Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.

I don’t need a certain number of friends, just a number of friends I can be certain of.

Every small positive change we make in ourselves repays us in confidence in the future.

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful.

'Thank you' is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding.

Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.

What is the finding of love, but a voice answering a voice?

The knowledge that life is finite was always in the back of my mind.

Lord, give me strength and ability to understand when I can heal, but give me the wisdom to understand when my profession is useless.

Characters must not brood too long. They must not waste time running up and down ladders in their own insides.

When I look back, I can see why people thought I was aggressive. My first single, 'Do It Like A Dude,' resulted in a lot of misconceptions about me. I'm confident - but I'm not arrogant.

I was born an American, I live like an American, I will die an American.

We should not pour muck on ourselves.

Was the leaker in question, Ed Snowden, was he a traitor?

The cement of this union is the heart-blood of every American.