“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.”

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.

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.

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

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’ve always believed happiness is overrated, you know? It’s those difficult times that inform the next wonderful time, and it’s a series of trade-offs, of events, of wins and losses.

It is easy at any moment to resign the possession of a great fortune; to acquire it is difficult and arduous.

No soul that aspires can ever fail to rise; no heart that loves can ever be abandoned. Difficulties exist only that in overcoming them we may grow strong, and they who have suffered are able to save.

My thought process is in Malayalam. So, every time I have to work outside Malayalam, the process is a little stressful. I have to translate my Malayalam thoughts into English and back to Tamil.

In my opinion we are at the limit now, and 17 races is really too much. With all the testing that we do now, it means we’re always on the bike and it’s quite difficult.

Man learns through experience, and the spiritual path is full of different kinds of experiences. He will encounter many difficulties and obstacles, and they are the very experiences he needs to encourage and complete the cleansing process.

Being famous is like a dream come true but it’s really difficult because you lose your freedom. I don’t want to lose being a kid.

An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.