When we decide to be happy we accept the responsibility to bring happiness to someone else. Some decide that happiness and glee are the same thing, they are not. When we choose happiness we accept the responsibility to lighten the load of someone else and to be a light on the path to another who may be walking in darkness.

You don't have to tell everything you know, but let what you do say be the truth as you understand it.

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that's walked a song that's spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

You can see in others what they don't see in themselves and what the world doesn't see in them.

If you have a song to sing, who are you not to open your mouth and sing to the world?

I'm not sure if resilience is ever achieved alone. Experience allows us to learn from example. But if we have someone who loves us-I don't mean who indulges us, but who loves us enough to be on our side-then it's easier to grow resilience, to grow belief in self, to grow self-esteem. And it's self-esteem that allows a person to stand up.

The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you - black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.