A woman who is convinced that she deserves to accept only the best challenges herself to give the best. Then she is living phenomenally.

We need to not be in denial about what we've done, what we've come through. It will help us if we all do that.

The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the Black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only the crumbs from his country's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a Lucullan feast. Hence the janitor who lives in one room but sports a robin's-egg-blue Cadillac is not laughed at but admired, and the domestic who buys forty-dollar shoes is not criticized but is appreciated. We know that they have put to use their full mental and physical powers. Each single gain feeds into the gains of the body collective.

I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I'll be okay. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me. So I have a special place for every library, in my heart of hearts.

Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity.

The most important thing is to DARE.

Have enough courage to love.