My first day of teaching, I got hit in the head with a bandstand & needed 4 stitches. Welcome to #NYCity teaching in the 90s.

If you work around at-risk teen students, actually tell them you love them and have faith in their success. No one tells them that. No one.

If you understand 'it' will come, then you'll understand 'it' will pass. No matter what happens, you can make it. Trust me, you can.

When teachers doubt your potential, show them how wrong they truly are.

If you get to a point where something happens today to stress you out, take a breath & center your thoughts on peace. Ignored thoughts die.

We can not escape tragic roads. It is like grasping at the sun & trying to catch air. We must take one step at-a-time. Keep going.

Sometimes, all it takes is your smile (even if forced) & a domino effect of smiles happen ... infectious.

Our lives are filled with meeting wonderful people. Make sure those that have become a part of your life hear your words of appreciation.

Ah, woman. She is an enigma. An anomaly of perfection & irony. She can lure angels into her arms & give birth to a nation of ideologies.

No matter what happens, you can get through this day. Inhale. Focus on the word, 'relax. Exhale. Say, 'I can do this!' And then do it.

No one likes rain but rain brings us pleasure for once pleasure's gone we learn what to treasure.

A world without heroes is only a world with either mere men or men with wit and courage who never had the courage to take steps that could write great and amazing stories of life!

It took me a long time to realize you don't choose what you're famous for.

I did not believe in the war. I thought it was wrong to go into any war. And I got to the war, and saw the Germans, and I changed my mind. I decided we were right going into World War II.

The world is poor because her fortune is buried in the sky and all her treasure maps are of the earth.

I want to be acknowledged as not just a pretty idol who sings and dances on stage, but as an artist

Watch, listen and learn. You can't know it all yourself. Anyone who thinks they do is destined for mediocrity.

It's very easy for some men and in some cases women to sit back and say with 20-20 hindsight, "Tsk-tsk, should have done more." But it doesn't account for the reality.

I find it so unattractive when women wear sneakers with their business suits. I wear a nice pair of loafers or low-heeled pumps, and that's that.

That's what reading was for my mother, and became for me - a way to escape, a private time machine, a place that began with moral instruction but soon morphed into empathy and imagination.

Ignorance is not bliss, but in my case, that was.