I will look after you and I will look after anybody you say needs to be looked after, any way you say. I am here. I brought my whole self to you. I am your mother.

The intensity with which young people live demands that they "blank out" as often as possible.

In all the institutions I try to be present and accountable for all I do and leave undone. I know that eventually I shall have to be present and accountable n the presence of God. I do not wish to be...

The world had taken a deep breath and was having doubts about continuing to revolve.

We may act sophisticated and worldly but I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home, a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do.

Women been gittin' pregnant ever since Eve ate that apple.

Love heals. Heals and liberates. I use the word , not meaning sentimentality, but a condition so strong that it may be that which holds the stars in their heavenly positions and that which causes the...

Never whine. Whining lets a brute know that a victim is in the neighborhood.

A person is the product of their dreams. So make sure to dream great dreams. And then try to live your dream.

The charitable say in effect, 'I seem to have more than I need and you seem to have less than you need. I would like to share my excess with you.' Fine, if my excess is tangible, money or goods, and...

If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult.

A story went the rounds about a San Franciscan white matron who refused to sit beside a Negro civilian on the streetcar, even after he made room for her on the seat. Her explanation was that she would...

You only are free when you realize you belong no place - you belong every place - no place at all.

She comprehended the perversity of life, that in the struggle lies the joy.

It's in the click of my heels,The bend of my hair,the palm of my hand,The need of my care,'Cause I'm a womanPhenomenally.Phenomenal woman,That's me.

The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.

We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.

Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware. And the worst part of my awareness was that I didn't know what I was aware of. I knew I knew very...

I've got a magic charmThat I keep up my sleeve,I can walk the ocean floorAnd never have to breathe.

To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision.

Don't let the man bring you down.

Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution.

Ritie, don't worry 'cause you ain't pretty. Plenty pretty women I seen digging ditches or worse. You smart. I swear to God, I rather you have a good mind than a cute behind.

If you're for the right thing, you do it without thinking.

The human heart... tells us that we are more alike than we are unalike.

Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait.

I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and the dragons of home under one's skin, at the extreme corners of one's eyes and possibly in...

Each of us has the right and the responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead, and those over which we have traveled, and if the future road looms ominous or unpromising, and the roads back...

To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision. Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender...

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud. Do not complain. Make every effort to change things you do...