I interviewed - no - had lunch with Harper Lee several years ago, trying to convince Harper Lee to do "To Kill a Mockingbird" for the book club. She wouldn't do it. She said, "Honey, I said everything I wanted to say."

God can dream a bigger dream for you than you can dream for yourself, and your role on Earth is to attach yourself to that divine force and let yourself be released to it.

I really feel a sense of responsibility first as a creation of a force that I call God, that's bigger than myself. And because I'm black, I feel the responsibility to that. I feel the responsibility to my womanness. But more importantly, I feel a responsibility to my humanness.

I thought, If I'm gonna run a jazz club, if I've got Miles Davis' posters in my bar, I should at least know what his horn sounds like.

Lasting joy is found not in what you get, but in what you give.

Your life is big. Keep reaching.

If you neglect to recharge a battery, it dies. And if you run full speed ahead without stopping for water, you lose momentum to finish the race.