“That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person.”

I always tell young people to hold on to their dreams. And sometimes you have to stand up for what you think is right even if you have to stand alone.

I’ve always told my children that once they go out into the world, they must have two heads and two minds: one to keep grounded, the other to deal with corporate America.

Young people think Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn’t the case at all.

I wanted the young African-American girls also on the bus to know that they had a right to be there, because they had paid their fare just like the white passengers.

For African-Americans, it’s still going to be – some people say double hard – I’d say four times as hard. Be an opportunist. Take advantage of your resources, because the only way to win is with education, self-esteem, having value in yourself.

A lot has changed since I grew up, but there’s still a long way to go. I don’t think we can move forward with Donald Trump as the president. There’s a disconnect there. We don’t want to regress, we want progress.

As long as white people put people of color, African Americans and Latinos, in the same dispensable bag, and look at our children of color as insignificant and treat women of color as not as deserving of protection as white women, we will never achieve true equality.

When our founding fathers drafted the Constitution and Bill of Rights, black people weren’t even considered human.

A lot of African American women wanted to emulate white women. But I said in my mind, rationally thinking, there is no way you are going to get your hair that straight, especially in the summer.

When I told my mother I was pregnant, I thought she was going to have a heart attack.

I was about four years old the first time I ever saw what happened when you acted up to whites.

There were many African Americans – many, many stories similar to my story.

I lost most of my friends. Their parents had told them to stay away from me, because they said I was crazy, I was an extremist.

The light-skinned girls always thought they were better looking. So did the teachers, too. That meant most of the dark complexion ones didn’t like themselves.

There was segregation everywhere. The churches, buses and schools were all segregated and you couldn’t even go into the same restaurants.

Being dragged off that bus was worth it just to see Barack Obama become president, because so many others gave their lives and didn’t get to see it, and I thank God for letting me see it.

I know I’m not the kind of person who’s gonna wind up a walking jukebox, like many rock ‘n’ roll artists. They just play their hits and that’s it. That doesn’t appeal to me.

Every stage of education begins with childhood. That is why the most educated person on earth so much resembles a child.

Forgiveness isn’t about letting the other person off the hook – it’s about releasing ourselves.

Even a graphomaniac is an extremely complicated person.

Remember that you have a choice in what you see. If you choose to see a person’s darkness, you strengthen your darkness within. If you choose to see their light, you shine from the inside out.

At the very end, the one person who Rambo should kill, he doesn’t kill. He lets it live. Because you can’t kill that kind of hypocritical bureaucracy. It goes on forever.

Putting your well-being first – like putting your oxygen mask on before you help the person next to you – that really benefits all your relationships.

I think when you’re in a relationship where you really care for the other person, when they achieve their dreams it’s better than when you do yourself.