The first thing I do in the morning when I awaken is say, 'Thank you, Lord!' I'm grateful to be alive, and I'm going to try to tell the truth as well as I know and tell it as eloquently as I can so that people can hear it.

We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.

Whenever something went wrong when I was young - if I had a pimple or if my hair broke - my mom would say, 'Sister mine, I'm going to make you some soup.' And I really thought the soup would make my pimple go away or my hair stronger.

Determine to live life with flair and laughter.

All riddles are blues, / And all blues are sad, / And I'm only mentioning / Some blues I've had.

Listen to some good poetry. You see? It keeps us from thinking we are only what our blatant appetites describe us as.

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.