I didn't have a catharsis for my childhood pain, most of us don't, and until I learned how to forgive those people and let it go, I was unhappy.

I try not to take on the weight or the burden of it. Once it's on the paper, I try to leave it, because I want to surrender to what I'm supposed to write about.

True love can come more than once.

I was a very poor young black boy in New Orleans, just a face without a name, swimming in a sea of poverty trying to survive.

It's so important to forgive people for their wrongs in your own life because every bit of it was for a reason-it was to form the person that you are.

I always feed myself positivity. I turn to anything that teaches good, that teaches strength, and that you can make it. I swear to you that those kinds of thoughts come alive in your body and in anything you touch because your energy goes into everything you touch, everything you share and everything you speak. So, it's most important that you surround yourself with positivity always, and have it in your mind at all times.

What I've found about it is that there are some folks you can talk to until you're blue in the face--they're never going to get it and they're never going to change. But every once in a while, you'll run into someone who is eager to listen, eager to learn, and willing to try new things. Those are the people we need to reach. We have a responsibility as parents, older people, teachers, people in the neighborhood to recognize that.