She wasn't that tough on me, but I think she was often a little frightened - being a single parent. So it begets this quality of desired absoluteness that doesn't really exist. My sister could crack her up. She'd be getting into trouble and put the Steve Martin arrow through her head and mom would start to laugh. I didn't have the same sort of wiliness.

When we were growing up, we were so poor that our heritage was the only thing we had. Mama would say, 'Kids, pour more water in the soup. Better days are coming.'

A wonderful pastor I know once told me, "Perfectionism is the highest order of self-abuse." So now I try to remind myself that if I engage in perfectionism, I am abusing myself. Period.

I think that [Obama] is a powerful leader. I think he’s a brilliant man. I think that he has an incredible devotion to our constitution, and that he is now able to flower more as the president I knew he could be.

I have said countless times that unless you are delivering a product and service that is really needed and unless you are doing it really well, you don't stick around for 80 years.

As a Goodwill Ambassador for YouthAIDS, I've learned that the face of AIDS is increasingly young and female. By educating young people and empowering them to make the right choices we can stop the spread of HIV/AIDS

I was powerless over my childhood but the coping strategies that I developed, to survive, all of which were creative and brilliant and got me through, as an adult those became my defects of character. Those became my shortcomings, control and all that kind of stuff... and that's my responsibility. I was a blameless child in what happened in the home; I take responsibility for my behaviors as an adult.