You are a person of the greatest importance when you are a mother of the family.

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.

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

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

He's asleep in the harbor, disguised as dog shit.

Creativeness often consists of merely turning up what is already there.

I'm fine, I am just going to go over here and puke shards of my own pelvis into this bush.

The brave man wants no charms to encourage him to his duty, and the good man scorns all warnings that would deter him from fulfilling it.

Christmas is a kindling of new fires.

Our opinion of others is not so variable as our opinion of ourselves.

People are waking up in their homes - without conferences. They're waking up because life is waking them up, not because of some conference called "Body and Soul."

Like ships that have gone down at sea, when heaven was all tranquillity.

You have to manage a system. The system doesn't manage itself.