You might encounter defeats but you must never be defeated... Love a lot. Laugh a lot at the silliest things and be very serious... love life.

I want all my senses engaged. Let me absorb the world's variety and uniqueness.

We will sometimes have defeats in life but you can have defeats without being defeated, you could fail without being a failure. When you see failure and defeats as merely part of the process to get to when.

In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans - because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings.

Money and power can liberate only if they are used to do so. They can imprison and inhibit more finally than barred windows and iron chains.