There was one emotional outlet my people always had when they had the blues. That was singing.

Basically there is no difference between whites and blacks, browns and yellows. I decided to think no more of people as Northerners and Southerners.

Whenever I played Columbus, Ohio, I dropped in to see my close friend, a medium who had mysterious powers. Her Indian guide was Mohawk.

We are all gifted. That is our inheritance.

We never had a bathtub. Mom would bathe me in the wooden or tin washtub in the kitchen, or in a big lard can.

I am somebody cause God don't make no junk

Many people know how to criticize, but few know how to praise.

Only those who are being burned know what fire is like.

Today or any day that phone may ring and bring good news.

All the men in my life have been two things: an epic and an epidemic.

Whenever I write for hotel reservations, I always enclose a set of rules I have made for the hotels.

You can't judge your parenting by the choices of your kids.

The distance you walk on water depends on how great your faith is.

It is only the rooms of the present I wish to inhabit.

A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.

..bear in mind that, in general, it is the object of our newspapers rather to create a sensation-to make a point-than to further the cause of truth." Dupin in "The Mystery of Marie Roget

Most doctors are uncomfortable with medical conditions that have a psychological basis.

The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or sovereign.

My mother, she smiles when I come around now. My daughter's eatin' decent meals and she's in private school. She's 4 years old. She started school. It's a beautiful thing.

Strange! I don't understand how it is that we can write mathematical expressions and calculate what the thing is going to do without being able to picture it.

This is perhaps the most important statement on religion ever made. It clarified the intent of the founders of the constitution irrespective of the attempts of modern day religious revisionists.