I married a man once and we had been married over a year before I found he preferred potatoes. I said, "I didn't know you loved potatoes." And he said that until he was about 13, he thought rice was potato seeds.
I know that you that you may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. If you accept that you have been defeated, you give power to the force that is trying to defeat you.
I got my own back.
I'm young as morning and fresh as dew. Everybody loves me and so do you.
The world had taken a deep breath and was having doubts about continuing to revolve.
Words are things. You must be careful, careful about calling people out of their names, using racial pejoratives and sexual pejoratives and all that ignorance. Don’t do that. Some day we’ll be able to measure the power of words. I think they are things. They get on the walls. They get in your wallpaper. They get in your rugs, in your upholstery, and your clothes, and finally in to you.
The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.
Naturally, if you love somebody, you do want to see their face every now and again, but that's not a condition of your love. People often get possession mixed up with love, and they say, "If you really loved me, you would call me." How - when life is going on? I think of you all the time, and the thought of you always lifts my spirits. But I'm not right at the phone!
My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.
And one of my absolute favorite quotes of all-time, one that I've adopted as one of my greatest life mottos: Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: "I'm with you kid. Let's go."
You only are free when you realize you belong no place - you belong every place - no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.
I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.
You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. Please remember that your difficulties do not define you. They simply strengthen your ability to overcome.
It's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.
The most called-upon prerequisite of a friend is an accessible ear.
Everybody is worth everything.
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.
I have no modesty. Modesty is a learned affectation. It's like decal stuck up on a person.
All of us knows, not what is expedient, not what is going to make us popular, not what the policy is, or the company policy - but in truth each of us knows what is the right thing to do. And that's how I am guided.
In all my work, I try to say - 'You may be given a load of sour lemons, why not try to make a dozen lemon meringue pies?'
Every journey begins with a single step.
Let us live so we do not regret years of inertia and ignorance, so when we die we can say all of our energy was dedicated to the noble liberation of the human mind and spirit, beginning with my own.
Be present in all things and thankful for all things.
I'm sorry to say that when some people get to age 50, they say, "Well, that's the end, I'll never have to do sex again." They lay down first and get up last! But in your sixties, everything is sweeter. You have more time.
Continue. Be loving and be strong. Be fierce and be kind. And don't give in and don't give up.'
I believe in living a poetic life, an art full life. Everything we do from the way we raise our children to the way we welcome our friends is part of a large canvas we are creating.
Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.
My encouragement to you is to go tomorrow to the library.
The trouble for the thief is not how to steal the chief’s bugle, but where to blow it.
Out of the huts of history's shame I rise Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.
No one comes from the earth like grass. We come like trees. We all have roots.
I thought if war did not include killing, I'd like to see one every year.
Because of our routines we forget that life is an ongoing adventure.
I thought if I could face the worst danger voluntarily, and triumph, I would forever have power over it.
He was a simple man who had no inferiority complex about his lack of education, and even more amazing no superiority complex because he had succeeded despite that lack.
Raising kids is like nailing Jell-O to a tree.
When my grandmother died, I realized that even if I had millions of dollars, I couldn't find her anywhere on earth. My next thought was that I would die. I looked at my life and thought, "I'm afraid to die." I concluded that whether I was afraid or not, I would die. It was one of the most important crossroads in my life, once I realized that no matter what, I would do this thing, the next step was to think, "If I am going to do the most difficult and frightening thing - dying - is it possible that I could do some difficult and impossible things that are good?"
Love builds up the broken wall and straightens the crooked path. Love keeps the stars in the firmament and imposes rhythm on the ocean tides. Each of us is created of it and I suspect each of us was created for it.
I promised myself that I would write as well as I can, tell the truth, not to tell everything I know, but to make sure that everything I tell is true, as I understand it. And to use the eloquence which my language affords me.
The honorary duty of a human being is to love.
I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.
You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I'll rise!
First best is falling in love. Second best is being in love. Least best is falling out of love. But any of it is better than never having been in love.
Beneath the skin, beyond the differing features and into the true heart of being, fundamentally, we are more alike, my friend, than we are unalike.
Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.
Have a purpose to your life: Purpose does not mean having a job...You can have a job and still be unfulfilled.
The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are.
We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.
Take a month and show some kindness for the folks who thought that blindness was an illness that affected eyes alone.
Never whine. Whining lets a brute know that a victim is in the neighborhood.
When I want to think about what would be the right thing to do, the fair thing to do, the wise thing to do, I can just think of my grandmother. I can always hear her say, "Now sister, you know what's right. Just do right!"
I'm interested in women's health because I'm a woman. I'd be a darn fool not to be on my own side.
Love is many things. It is varied. One thing love is not, is unsure.
We are only as blind as we want to be.
You will face many defeats in your life, but never let yourself be defeated.
Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.
Hope does not take away your problems. It can lift you above them.
You may not remember what a person said to you, you may not remember what a person did to you, but you will never forget how a person made you feel!
If you happen to fall in love with someone in another race, it's more difficult, because you have to translate yourself.
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.
