I was very blessed to have family and friends, but particularly family, who told me I was not only all right, I was just right, so I believe that my brain is a good one, and it’s lasting me very well.

I’m a woman, and anytime you tell a woman that she looks nice, it’s not going to upset her.

The sun, too, shines into cesspools and is not polluted.

I had a period where I thought I might not be good enough to publish.

I don’t know if I’ve ever cared much what others think.

Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five years, scold them. By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your grown up children are your best friends.

Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have.

Until you have formed the habit of looking for the good instead of the bad there is in others, you will be neither successful nor happy.

I think what motivates people is not great hate, but great love for other people.

The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.

Part of our tradition as black women is that we are universalists. Black children, yellow children, red children, brown children, that is the black woman’s normal, day-to-day relationship. In my family alone, we are about four different colors.

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.

I’m attracted to women who are smart and funny and ambitious and have lives of their own and great families. Isn’t that what attracts anyone?

I believe that one person can make a difference.

I believe that I’m one of the best in the world at what I do, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.

Isn’t it funny how babies laugh a lot? I read a toddler, a young child laughs 300 times a day. The average adult laughs, like, four times a day. God put it in them. He put the laugh in us, but I think sometimes we let life get us down, you know, have bad breaks, and we lose our breaks.

One of the things I realized is that if you do not take control over your time and your life, other people will gobble it up. If you don’t prioritize yourself, you constantly start falling lower and lower on your list, your kids fall lower and lower on your list.

Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.

If we say it long enough eventually we’re going to reap a harvest. We’re going to get exactly what we’re saying.

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.

I sing seriously to my mom on the phone. To put her to sleep, I have to sing ‚Maria‘ from West Side Story. When I hear her snoring, I hang up.

The child inside of you knows how to take things as they come, how to deal most effectively and happily with everything and everyone it encounters on this planet. If you can recapture that childlike essence of your being, you can stay ‚forever young at heart.‘

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Whatever you believe with feeling becomes your reality.

Together, we can help make sure that every family that walks into a restaurant can make an easy, healthy choice.

My wife, a schoolteacher, very disciplined. If you think I’m tough, trust me, and wait till you see when the children are on the naughty step. It’s hilarious. So we decided that I’m going to work like a donkey and provide amazing support for the family.

I have to tell you, my seven-year-old granddaughter said to my daughter, her mother, ‚So what’s the big deal about Grandma Maddy having been Secretary of State? Only girls are Secretaries of State.‘ Most of her lifetime, it’s true. But at the time it really was a big deal.

To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.

In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.

The best morale exist when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it’s usually lousy.

I had this child, and it destroyed my family.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.

My mother was a dominant force in our family. And I always saw her as the leader. And that was great for me as a young woman, because I never saw that women had to be dominated by men.

Being a housewife and a mother is the biggest job in the world, but if it doesn’t interest you, don’t do it – I would have made a terrible mother.

I’m telling you there is hope. I have seen it, but it does not come from the governments or corporations. It comes from the people.

You get one life. I’m going to embrace mine.

I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it.

The love of the family, the love of one person can heal. It heals the scars left by a larger society. A massive, powerful society.

Feeling sorry for ourselves is the most useless waste of energy on the planet. It does absolutely no good. We can’t let our circumstances or what others do or don’t do control us. We can decide to be happy regardless.

My mother was always fascinated with the fact that I could rhyme so much stuff.

Where fear is, happiness is not.

I don’t know what can be so dangerous about giving people hope. Causing people to have better relationships. I’m not leading them to some false God or something like that.

Never, and I mean never, allow anyone else’s ideas of who you can or can’t become sully your dream or pollute your imagination. This is your territory, and a ‚Keep Out‘ sign is a great thing to erect at all entrances to your imagination.

I don’t want to hear the word ‚can’t.‘

Sisters are brittle things. God was penurious with me, which makes me shrewd with Him. One is a dainty sum! One bird, one cage, one flight; one song in those far woods, as yet suspected by faith only!

One of the greatest lessons of my own life was learning to turn the inner rampage of hatred and anger toward my own father for his reprehensible behavior and abandonment of his family into an inner reaction more closely aligned with God and God-realized love.

Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.

Well, I don’t think there’s any need for people to focus on my career.

The most positive men are the most credulous.

Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you.

In my heart, I’m just a kid from the council houses. I can remember the old cottage and my dad coming round with the tin bath. I’m not a rich man.

Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.

My philosophy is it’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me. I am what I am, and I do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. And it makes life so much easier.

Every summer’s mine.

People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.

I actually feel more of a woman because I feel like I’m being smart about my choices, and I’m putting my family first, and I’m in charge of my life and my health. I think that’s what makes a woman complete.

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.

In this great country, we celebrate success. We don’t want to penalize those who have done well.

Saints can be happy under every circumstance.

If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.