I just really love people a lot. I really love them.

The earth is for joy, and dancing is a big part of that. And you dance with nature. Nature is always dancing. If you're not harassing it and killing it and mutilating it, nature is dancing. That's what the leaves are doing when the wind blows through them. We live in a magical wonderful universe. And just spoil it while thinking we can at some point go to heaven or some other planet.

Honestly, that is the most important thing to me: Can I continue to live up to my own expectations of myself - and not fall back into slacking?

I don't know nothing, I think. And glad of it.

In my work and in myself I reflect black people, women and men, as I reflect others. One day even the most self-protective ones will look into the mirror I provide and not be afraid.

Don't wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you've got to make yourself.

Expect nothing, live frugally on surprise. Become a stranger to need of pity. Or if compassion be freely given out, take only enough. Stop short of the urge to plead, then purge away the need. Wish for nothing larger than your own small heart or greater than a star. Tame wild disappointment with caress, unmoved and cold. Make of it a parka for your soul. Discover the reason why so tiny human midget exists at all, so scared and so unwise. But expect nothing, live frugally on surprise.