“I think that each of us is so much alike, and yet at the same time we are so different, and I have a feeling that if you encountered difficulty, and I with my age encountered the same difficulty, I would respond one way, and you would respond another. Neither would be right or wrong. It's just that each of us is courageous, and that's what I encourage, courage, and the courage to see, and the courage to say to oneself what one has seen. Don't be in denial.”

“Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size But when I start to tell them, They think I'm telling lies. I say, It's in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.”

“In today's climate in our country, which is sickened with the pollution of pollution, threatened with the prominence of AIDS, riddled with burgeoning racism, rife with growing huddles of the homeless, we need art and we need art in all forms. We need all methods of art to be present, everywhere present, and all the time present.”

“Each child belongs to all of us and they will bring us a tomorrow in direct relation to the responsibility we have shown to them.”

“Anyone of us can be a rainbow in somebody's clouds. I want the University of Cincinnati to be a rainbow in the clouds. The University of Cincinnati is really a possibility of hope; it is a rainbow.”

“A beautiful woman is a practical poet, taming her savage mate, planting tenderness, hope and eloquence in all whom she approaches.”

“A woman's strength is the unresistible might of weakness.”

“Would it not grieve a woman to be over-mastered by a piece of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marle?”

“Difficulties exist to be surmounted.”

“The fears you don’t face control you. The fears you face, you move beyond.”

“As I look back at the entire tapestry of my life, I can see from the perspective of the present moment that every aspect of my life was necessary and perfect. Each step eventually led to a higher place, even though these steps often felt like obstacles or painful experiences.”

“Haply a woman's voice may do some goodWhen articles too nicely urged be stood on.”

“A woman impudent and mannish grownIs not more loath'd than an effeminate man.”

“Ah me, how weak a thingThe heart of woman is!”

“You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life.”

“Come, Lady, die to live.”

“To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep No more; and by a sleep, to say we end The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die to sleep, To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub.”

“To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,Gives, in your weakness, strength unto your foe,And so your follies fight against yourself.Fear, and be slain--so worse can come to fight;And fight and die is death destroying death,Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.”

“Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious Is to be frightened out of fear.”

“To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength, gives in your weakness strength unto your foe.”