People have a copyright on their own life.

I think you're not really teaching anyone unless you're learning yourself.

For black people, being around white people is sometimes like taking care of babies you don't like, babies who throw up on you again and again, but whom you cannot punish, because they're babies.

I was so well loved by my mother that if people have any expectations of me I really don't notice because I'm hardest on myself.

Inspiration takes many forms, but it's rarely pure.

Challenging is good, like good conversation, yes? Who wants to have dinner with the same old easy listening music sounding friends all the time?

One of the things I noticed when I worked at Vibe was that backstage at a fashion show, they always referred to the black models as "black girls." I thought, "They never say 'white girls.'

Images are really powerful. People fall in love with images, and as a way of falling in love with someone because they're like an image.

People are quick to make monuments of anything they live long enough to control.

Who says reading should be easy? Shouldn't it challenge you as hard sometimes as love. Maybe "hard" is not the right word in this context. Ha!

There were so few black men who were successful and who successfully conveyed black male fear - how America can make you feel crazy, and how America can create interesting levels of contradiction.

Whatever we do in Life, let us not forget to enjoy it. Life is a Gift and will soon end. We may have Goals and Aspirations, but we must enjoy every Moment of Life.

It is rarely possible to learn yourself fully.

Time spent in meditation is as precious as gold.

Power is like a woman you want to stay in bed with forever.

I have faith in young people because I know the strongest emotions which prevail are those of love and caring and belief and tolerance.

There's hostility to lying, and there should be.

Those who know the normal life of the poor... will realize well enough that without economic security, liberty is not worth having.

You can dwell on things, and if you open your eyes and pay attention to it, those things start popping up around you.

Women serve as guardians of culture, upholders of society.

I am a person who goes out without a purse.