So sweet and precious is family life.

God is the color of water. Water doesn't have a color.

I asked her if I was black or white. She replied "You are a human being. Educate yourself or you'll be a nobody!

You have to choose between what the world expects of you and what you want for yourself.

Writing for me is cutting out the fat and getting to the meaning.

First person narrative is a very effective tool but you have to know as a writer how to make it work.

If you have the material it will form itself as a kind of connective tissue.

People don't realize you're blowing over changes, time changes, harmony, different keys. I mark a point in my solo where it's got to peak at point D I go to A, B, C D then I'm home.

I come to the understanding that maybe what was on the inside was more important, and that your outer covering didn't count so much as folks thought it did, colored or white, man or woman.

I put headlights in Ford vans. I still drive a Ford.

It is hard to find romance in the present because there's nothing left to the imagination.

In order to know who you are you need to know God is.

Don’t be silent on your talent!

Somehow, " she said coldly, "you have confused profitable and not profitable for right and wrong. I, however, have not.

Responsibilities are given to him on whom trust rests. Responsibility is always a sign of trust.

If you believe our president, a former oil businessman, is going to end our addiction to oil, shame on all of us.

You take a poor black child. Give him a good education, tell him he's somebody, that God didn't create junk when he created him, and that black child will create his own affirmative action.

...Don't let me ever hear you say, 'I can't read fiction. I only have time for the truth.' Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear of 'literature'? That means fiction, too, stupid.

You have to really kiss up to EVERYONE! Kiss up to anyone you think can help you. That's really the best advice I can give. You obviously have to have an act - but, maybe you don't.

We can learn to move into the unknown with the confidence that we have a guiding force within us that is showing us the way.

To show compassion for an individual without showing concern for the structures of society that make him an object of compassion is to be sentimental rather than loving.