I'm very blessed that I have a healthy temper. I can become quite angry and burning in anger, but I have never been bitter. Bitterness is a corrosive, terrible acid. It just eats you and makes you sick.

I have a son, who is my heart. A wonderful young man, daring and loving and strong and kind.

Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise.

There were people who went to sleep last night, poor and rich and white and black, but they will never wake again. And those dead folks would give anything at all for just five minutes of this weather or ten minutes of plowing. So you watch yourself about complaining. What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it.

I'm sorry to say that when some people get to age 50, they say, "Well, that's the end, I'll never have to do sex again." They lay down first and get up last! But in your sixties, everything is sweeter. You have more time.

It may in fact be utterly impossible to be successful without helping others to become successful.