“I think life experiences are different for people who know what they want as children.”

I believe that it is impossible for two individuals not committed to their own and each other’s well being to sustain a healthy and enduring relationship.

When we face pain in relationships our first response is often to sever bonds rather than to maintain commitment.

If any female feels she need anything beyond herself to legitimate and validate her existence, she is already giving away her power to be self-defining, her agency.

The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is-it’s to imagine what is possible.

To be truly visionary we have to root our imagination in our concrete reality while simultaneously imagining possibilities beyond that reality.

I think Black people need to take self-esteem seriously.

Any society based on domination supports and condones violence.

Genuine love is rarely an emotional space where needs are instantly gratified.

All our silences in the face of racist assault are acts of complicity.

When we drop fear, we can draw nearer to people, we can draw nearer to the earth, we can draw nearer to all the heavenly creatures that surround us.

Being oppressed means the absence of choices.

Class is more than money. Class is also about knowledge.

Love is really more of an interactive process. It’s about what we do not just what we feel. It’s a verb, not a noun.

Since loving is about knowing, we have more meaningful love relationships when we know each other and it takes time to know each other.

The greatest movement for social justice our country has ever known is the civil rights movement and it was totally rooted in a love ethic.

My idea of a delicious time is to read a book that is wonderful. But the ruling passion of my life is being a seeker after truth and the divine.

No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little girls should be told they’re pretty, even if they aren’t.

All grown-ups were once children but only few of them remember it.

Only the children know what they are looking for.

God wants a child’s heart and a grownup’s head.

Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.

Is there anything more important than a child?

And I think that’s what life is all about, actually, about children and flowers.

My dream is that every child has enough food to eat, good medical care, and the chance to go to school and even attend college.