“If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love.”

Making a decision to write was a lot like deciding to jump into a frozen lake.

You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I’ll rise!

Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.

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.

It is this belief in a power larger than myself and other than myself which allows me to venture into the unknown and even the unknowable.

Living well is an art that can be developed: a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings and assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift.

Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.

When someone shows you who they are believe them; the first time.

There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure truth.

The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.

While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God’s creation.

Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.

I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn.

Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.

Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!

I would suggest that the next generation stop looking for happiness outside of themselves but instead turn inward.

Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war.

What makes me most happy is connecting with others. I love meeting new people, being social, and engaging in empowering discussions.

The more you retrain yourself to choose happiness over fear, the more blissful you will be.

Happiness is your choice. You can choose today.

No matter what looms ahead, if you can eat today, enjoy the sunlight today, mix good cheer with friends today, enjoy it and bless God for it. Do not look back on happiness — or dream of it in the future. You are only sure of today; do not let yourself be cheated out of it.

I have enjoyed the happiness of the world; I have loved.

Happiness depends more on how life strikes you than on what happens.