I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.(Popular misquote of “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”)

Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.

Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away...

Out of the huts of history’s shameI riseUp from a past that’s rooted in painI riseI’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.Leaving behind nights of terror and fearI riseInto a daybreak that’s wondrously clearI riseBringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,I am the dream and the hope of...

In the flush of love’s light, we dare be brave. And suddenly we see that love costs all we are, and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.

I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I’ll be OK. It...

Won’t it be wonderful when black history and native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history.

Don’t get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that – if you dare. But get older because it’s fun!

All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.

I know that I’ve been guided by God. I am obedient.

I read the Bible to myself; I’ll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud, just to hear the language, hear the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful English is.

I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life.

Living well is an art that can be developed: a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings and assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift.

Whining is not only graceless, but can be dangerous. It can alert a brute that a victim is in the neighborhood.

Continue to be bold, courageous. Try to chose the wisest thing and once you’ve chosen the wisest thing go out and try to achieve it. Be it.

You don’t want modesty, you want humility. Humility comes from inside out. It says someone was here before me and I’m here because I’ve been paid for. I have something to do and I will do that because I’m paying for someone else who has yet to come.

Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!

The love of the family, the love of one person can heal. It heals the scars left by a larger society. A massive, powerful society.

I am never proud to participate in violence, yet I know that each of us must care enough for ourselves that we can be ready and able to come to our own defence when and wherever needed.

Effective action is always unjust.

For Africa to me… is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

Living in a state of terror was new to many white people in America, but black people have been living in a state of terror in this country for more than 400 years.

If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you must look forward, do so prayerfully. However, the wisest thing you can do is be present in the present… gratefully.

In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours.In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.

I find relief from the questions only when I concede that I am not obliged to know everything. I remind myself it is sufficient to know what I know, and that what I know, may not always be true.

When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.

I don’t believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your...

The loss of young first love is so painful that it borders on the ludicrous.

The most important thing I can tell you about aging is this: If you really feel that you want to have an off-the-shoulder blouse and some big beads and thong sandals and a dirndl skirt and a magnolia in your hair, do it. Even if you’re wrinkled.

Writing and cookery are just two different means of communication.

At one time, you could sit on the Rue de la Paix in Paris or at the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv or in Medina and you could see a person come in, black, white, it didn’t matter. You said, ‘That’s an American’ because there’s a readiness to smile and to talk to people.

Cooking certain dishes, like roast pork, reminds me of my mother.

It’s still scary every time I go back to the past. Each morning, my heart catches. When I get there, I remember how the light was, where the draft was coming from, what odors were in the air. When I write, I get all the weeping out.

Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.

Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!

A certain person wondered whya big strong girl like mewouldn’t keep a jobwhich paid a normal salary.I took my time to lead herand to read her every page.Even minimal peoplecan’t survive on minimal wage.A certain person wondered whyI wait all week for you.I didn’t have the wordsto describe just what you do.I said you had...

On this platform of peace, we can create a languageto translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.

…Lovers think quite different thoughtswhile lying side by side.

I have a son, who is my heart. A wonderful young man, daring and loving and strong and kind.

In all my work, I try to say – ‘You may be given a load of sour lemons, why not try to make a dozen lemon meringue pies?’

I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.

There’s something which impels us to show our inner souls. The more courageous we are, the more we succeed in explaining what we know.

At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.

I was married a few times, and one of my husbands was jealous of me writing.

I’m a serious aficionada of country music – Reba McEntire, Toby Keith, Montgomery Gentry. I’ve even written some songs. They haven’t done anything of mine yet. But it’s only a matter of time.

When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness… all the good things.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill,of things unknown, but longed for still, and his tune is heard on the distant hill, for the caged bird sings of freedom.

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.