In order to be able to live at all in America I must be unafraid to live anywhere in it, and I must be able to live in the fashion and with whom I choose.

Meditation is like the cloak of the good thief. You find a corner or somewhere where you can actually entertain your own self and your own soul, and understand what your work [is] here.

I feel a little peculiar around the children. For one thing, they grown. And I see they think me and Nettie and Shug and Albert and Samuel and Harpo and Sofia and Jack and Odessa real old and don't know much what going on. But I don't think us feel old at all. And us so happy. Matter of fact, I think this the youngest us ever felt.

People are called 'stars' not only because they shine... because the qualities they exemplify are... eternal. We are attracted to their sparkle, their warmth, their light, but they will be forever distant from us. So distant we can never quite believe our inseparability. Never quite believe that we are also composed of the light they have.

Just be what it is that you are, and that is just fine. You don't have to be what you're not in any way. Live that and live that fully, and that is where you discover ecstasy. You can't really have ecstasy as something other than yourself

In search of my mother's garden, I found my own.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me, along with the growth of vegetation from the earth and of hair from the head, is the growth of understanding.