“I believe most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.”

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.

The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.

While one may encounter many defeats, one must not be defeated.

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.

Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.

I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as ‘making a life’.

Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.

We spend precious hours fearing the inevitable. It would be wise to use that time adoring our families, cherishing our friends and living our lives.

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.

Nothing will work unless you do.

The problem I have with haters is that they see my glory, but they don’t know my story.

If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?

Most people don’t grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging.

Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.

I did not believe political directives could be successfully applied to creative writing . . . not to poetry or fiction, which to be valid had to express as truthfully as possible the individual emotions and reactions of the writer.

I feel very strongly that curves are natural, womanly and real. I shall continue to hope that women are able to believe in themselves for who they are inside, and not feel under such incredible pressure to be unnaturally thin.

One lady told me that before she saw ‘Sounder’ she didn’t believe black people could love each other, have deep relationships in the same way as white people.

But Christ’s lore and his apostles twelve, He taught and first he followed it himself.

I believe that I am in hell, therefore I am there.

I believe we should all know each other, we human carriers of so many pleasurable differences. To not know is to doubt, to shrink from, sidestep or destroy.

It isn’t the things that are happening to us that cause us to suffer, it’s what we say to ourselves about the things that are happening. The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.

Believe in the power of your own voice. The more noise you make, the more accountability you demand from your leaders, the more our world will change for the better.