Your past is just a story. And once you realize this it has no power over you.

Our generation has had no Great Depression, no Great War. Our war is spiritual. Our depression is our lives.

The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person.

We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.

Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave.

Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?

You know, the condom is the glass slipper of our generation. You slip it on when you meet a stranger. You dance all night, then you throw it away.

If you love something set it free, but don't be surprised if it comes back with herpes.

Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known.

The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close-up.

It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.

In the pursuit of dreams, we all have different beginnings. Your past is not negotiable. You must let go of the hope for a better past.

I may be lost, but I'm traveling the right way.

Our most important duty in life is to love. Our most important success in life is happiness.

It would be great to be able to pass on to someone all of the successes, the failures, and the knowledge that one has had. To help someone, avoid all the fire, pain and anxiety would be wonderful.

I have a lot of repression. So repression is what I make movies about.

In the United States, in poetry workshops, it's now quite a thing to make graduate students learn poems by heart.

I have lived through many wars and have lost everything many times Yet, life is beautiful, and I have so much to learn and enjoy. I have no space nor time for pessimism and hate.

I was marrying someone I loved because I didn't want to lose them; I didn't see anything wrong with that.

True love does not consist in trying to correct others, but in feeling joy that things are better than we expected.

I think it's important to represent black women and our natural hair. Not wearing a weave is totally beautiful and acceptable.