You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. Please remember that your difficulties do not define you. They simply strengthen your ability to overcome.

There's a place in you that you must keep inviolate. You must keep it pristine. Clean. So that nobody has a right to curse you or treat you badly. Nobody. No mother, father, no wife, no husband, no­­­-nobody. You have to have a place where you say: 'Stop it. Back up. Don't you know I'm a child of God?

I want to be representative of my race-the human race. I have a chance to show how kind we can be, how intelligent and generous we can be.

I was told many years ago by my grandmother who raised me: If somebody puts you on a road and you don't feel comfortable on it and you look ahead and you don't like the destination and you look behind and you don't want to return to that place, step off the road.

The truth brings the past into the present and prepares us for the future. That's what truth does

I'm a writer and writers either have good memories or nothing at all.

We are the victims of the world's most comprehensive robbery. Life demands a balance. It's all right if we do a little robbing now.