Try, start always at home. This is my encouragement to all writers, start at home. All virtues and vices begin at home, and then spread abroad.

Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.

My people had used music to soothe slavery's torment or to propitiate God, or to describe the sweetness of love and the distress of lovelessness, but I knew no race could sing and dance its way to freedom.

There is an amazing something in the American psyche which speaks about courage, and it says, 'Yes I can,' ... Yes, we will overcome it all because we have the spirit to do so.

To know and not to do is in fact not to know. We need to be active instruments against evil. We need to do.

You may be pretty or plain, heavy or thin, gay or straight, poor or rich. But remember this: In an election, every voice is equally powerful -- don't underestimate your vote. Voting is the great equalizer.

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