“Raising children uses every bit of your being - your heart, your time, your patience, your foresight, your intuition to protect them, and you have to use all of this while trying to figure out how ...”

“We're all moving at such a high rate that we have to grab the frozen dinners and the McDonald's. We can't make it a way of life - we have to get back to real, simple, clean good foods. It will save...”

“I think 'Soul Food' had the biggest impact on me because that's where I was really able to shine as an actress and because I also met my husband there, and that was a huge turning point in my perso...”

“Being away from home was tough, but the challenge and the thrill of being on Broadway was so fulfilling, and I'm thankful to my husband for making it possible and holding it down at home.”

“Not just as a black woman, but as a woman, since the beginning of time, beauty has been our responsibility.”

“My daughter has a vivid imagination, and so does my son.”

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”

“If I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and t...”

“I'm an Earth ecstatic, and my creed is simple: All life is sacred, life loves life, and we are capable of improving our behavior toward one another. As basic as that is, for me it's also tonic and ...”

“I'm choosing happiness over suffering, I know I am. I'm making space for the unknown future to fill up my life with yet-to-come surprises.”

“Future warns us through current symptoms in nature.”

“Human relationships always help us to carry on because they always presuppose further developments, a future - and also because we live as if our only task was precisely to have relationships with ...”

“I was ashamed of myself for being ashamed of myself. I didn't like feeling like that.”

“I felt like a failure, like somehow my self-worth was tied to my ability to procreate. I didn't feel like I could talk about it. I did not want other people's pity, so I mostly kept my story and my...”

“My failures may be my greatest successes. It is in failure that I have often drawn closer to God, learn to depend more on Him than myself, gained self-knowledge, and seen things in their right pers...”