Find a way to get paid for doing what you love. Then every paycheck will be a bonus.

All trials force the question, Who are you really? And you must trust yourself to answer

You are not the product of your circumstances. You are a composite of all the things you believe, and all the places you believe you can go. Your past does not define you. You can step out of your history and create a new day for yourself. Even if the entire culture is saying, "You can't." Even if every single possible bad thing that can happen to you does. You can keep going forward.

I consider this world to be like a school and our lives to be the classrooms.

Make the right decision even when nobody's looking and you will always turn out okay.

Do what you want to do, when you want to do it ... and not a moment sooner.

I don't think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good.