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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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.

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s sizeBut when I start to tell them,They think I’m telling lies.I say,It’s in the reach of my armsThe span...

If we don’t plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don’t have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don’t have to have an...

Fighting for one’s freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim or good Zen Buddhist. You work all day...

Nothing succeeds like success. Get a little success, and then just get a little more.

I love the melodies in the Old Testament, how preachers highlight them when they read from the Scripture. But I was influenced forever by the New Testament. I love the Beatitudes, informing us that the...

I think music is one of the hero/sheroes of the African-American existence.

If you’re serious, you really understand that it’s important that you laugh as much as possible and admit that you’re the funniest person you ever met. You have to laugh. Admit that you’re funny. Otherwise,...

At one time in my life, from the time I was seven until I was about 13, I didn’t speak. I only spoke to my brother. The reason I didn’t speak: I had been molested,...

Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.

Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.