Every morning I look in the mirror and remind myself: "No one owes you sh*t!" In this way, I am never disappointed. Never placing blame.

In order to grow, I promise you'll have to let go of some habits. 10 times out of 10, they'll be the habits you're most in love with.

All those other girls are cake...I'm Crème brûlée...Tiramisu, if you will. Just a few notches above.

I will Basquiat the canvas of your body like a Broadway Junction wall…and Gordon Parks you for those dark midnights when your scent fades.

You and those shot-glass eyes, deep swirling pools of 80-proof firewater, with the depth and profundity of Saturn’s spinning pulsars…

Wrote my way out of the hood...thought my way out of poverty! Don't tell me that knowledge isn't power. Education changes everything.

When the door to my writing chamber gasps shut and the almost imperceptible sigh of a rose petal falls on my desk, I know that my muse is present.

The most empowering thing you can do though is to create innovative ways to bring in livable wages. That begins with a debt free lifestyle.

A writer will divine a metaphor from a pattern on a dress, or a gesture, because sunsets have been done before.

Whatever it is you want in this life, be it material things, a place you want to be, or an experience you want to have, you must first make it real in the realm of your consciousness.

Some books must be sipped slowly like a strong bourbon. Most books must be devoured more than once because as you age you distill more.

Religious humor is not really my area, so I probably wouldn't do anything about that, or politics or something.

I believe that every child in this world needs to have a relationship with the land...to know how to nourish themselves...and to know how to connect with the community around them.

Praise is the beauty of a Christian. What wings are to a bird, what fruit is to the tree, what the rose is to the thorn, that is praise to a child of God.

You learn more when things go wrong.

some people always have a touch of youth about them.

We must demand more not from each other, but more from ourselves

I was not content at home. . . I wanted to live like a colorful butterfly in the sun.

Do not be afraid to go and to bring Christ into every area of life, to the fringes of society, even to those who seem farthest away, most indifferent.

To believe in immortality is one thing, but it is first needful to believe in life.

Just because people are in authority, if it doesn't seem right, don't do it. If it violates your own principles, don't do it.