"Baby, you know?" my mother once said to me. "I think you're the greatest woman I've ever met - and I'm not including my mother or Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt in that." She said, "You are very intelligent and you're very kind, and those two qualities do not often go together." Then she went across the street and got in her car, and I went the other way down to the streetcar. I thought, "Suppose she's right. She's intelligent - and she's too mean to lie." You see, a parent has the chance - and maybe the responsibility - to liberate her child. And my mom had liberated me when I was 17.

We are loved by Love itself. There is nothing good that we can't do.

I want to be a good human being. I'm doing my best, and I'm working at it.

Some of us are timid. We think we have something to lose so we don't try for that next hill.

Modesty is a learned affectation. And as soon as life slams the modest person against the wall, that modesty drops.

We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.

I wouldn't trade anything for my story now.