“The true cost of following your dreams isn't what you sacrifice when you chase them, it's what you lose when you don't”

“People who are driven by their values will overcome hurdles, difficulties, and obstacles in ways that people driven only by profit will never be able to”

“The words we choose can build communities, reunite loved ones, and inspire others. They can be a catalyst for change. However, our words also have the power to destroy and divide: they can start a ...”

“Your uniqueness is your greatest strength, not how well you emulate others.”

“People who are driven by love will overcome hardships and hurdles in ways that people who are only driven by profit never can.”

“I dont subscribe to the notion of seeing no color, that were all the same and race doesnt exist. Its a social and political reality that we live in. The problem when people say we should concentrat...”

“I am a person before I am anything else. I never say I am a writer. I never say I am an artist...I am a person who does those things.”

“The point, I decided, wasn't to have the autobiography or even the memories. The point was who I became when I wrote.”

“The willingness to reach inside every part of yourself opens the door to total understanding. You place your entire identity on the line, not just an isolated part. This may sound daunting, but act...”

“Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life's cruelest irony.”

“The sense of tragedy - according to Aristotle - comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I'm getting at? People are drawn deepe...”

“The irony of life is that those who wear masks often tell us more truths than those with open faces.”

“Some negroes lie, some are immoral, some negro men are not be trusted around women - black and white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.”

“The only honest way to approach the question of whiteness and blackness is to start by accepting that these are arbitrary categories that were invented in the 17th and 18th century in order to just...”

“I never asked Tolstoy to write for me, a little colored girl in Lorain, Ohio. I never asked [James] Joyce not to mention Catholicism or the world of Dublin. Never. And I don't know why I should be ...”