She thought of how precious it was to be able to know another person over many years. There was incomparable richness in it.

People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools.

no person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow and be perceived as fully blossomed as you were intended. Or who belittles in any fashion the gifts you labor so to bring into the world.

To acknowledge our ancestors means we are aware that we did not make ourselves, that the line stretches all the way back, perhaps to God; or to Gods. We remember them because it is an easy thing to forget: that we are not the first to suffer, rebel, fight, love and die. The grace with which we embrace life, in spite of the pain, the sorrow, is always a measure of what has gone before.

Anything that forces you to act at the possible harm of your own existence is going to exact a cost. You have to then think about, "Can I pay this? What will this mean to me - to my relationships, to my family, to everybody? What is this going to take? How much of me is this going to take?"

I'm pore, I'm black, I may be ugly and can't cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I'm here.

My parents taught me service - not by saying, but by doing. That was my culture, the culture of my family.