We all have that possibility, that potential and that promise of seeing beyond the seeming.

It is important that we learn humility, which says there was someone else before me who paid for me. My responsibility is to prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who is yet to come.

For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

Each of us has that right, that possibility, to invent ourselves daily.

Being free is being able to accept people for what they are, and not try to understand all they are or be what they are.

There are great parents of small children - they keep their little hair in bows - but those parents are not always good parents of young adults. As soon as their children get up to some size, it's "Shut up, sit down, you talk too much, keep your distance, I'll send you to Europe!" My mom was a terrible parent of small children but a great parent of young adults. She'd talk to me as if I had some sense.

Loving someone liberates the lover as well as the beloved. And that kind of love comes with age.