Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them!

The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

Always forgive your enemies nothing annoys them so much.

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.

Everyone may not be good, but there's always something good in everyone. Never judge anyone shortly because every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

Be yourself; everyone else is taken.

Women are made to be loved, not understood.

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.

I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.

Your greatest weapon is your MIND! Lock and load it with the greatest ammunition

I think, though, as African-American women, we are always trained to value our community even at the expense of ourselves, and so we attempt to protect the African-American community.

When we skim along the surface of history we see little but the rough barren rocks that rise out of it.

Kids flourish if we get them to school every day.

Life is a series of moments. The quality of attention and action that we bring to each moment determines the quality of our lives.

Never do things for money. It's always the things you do for love that turn out to pay the best.

Politicians must pick sides regularly; every time they vote. So it's perhaps natural that they see the world as a battle between competing groups.

Thank God for movie music. It preserves the rich vocabulary in classical music through challenging times.

The point is, there are some things worth dying for. There's no doubt about that. And I would die for my family. I would die for my freedom. I would die for my country.

Poetry teaches us music, metaphor, condensation and specificity.