Had I not had my grandmother, who dared to be my rainbow in the clouds, I would have been just another sexually abused barefoot black girl on the roads of Arkansas.
Just because I am wheelchair-bound doesn’t mean I don’t get around.
Have enough courage to love.
Continue to plant a kiss of concern on the cheek of the sick and the aged and infirm and count that actions as natural and to be expected.
Putting down on paper what you have to say is an important part of writing, but the words and ideas have to be shaped and cleaned, cleaned as severely as a dog cleans a bone, cleaned until there’s not a shred of anything superfluous.
I am a very religious person, so it is the presence of God, the constant unwavering, unrelenting presence of God which continues to help me to keep a character which I am proud to show.
A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true.
Everyone grows old but not everyone grows up.
I am capable of what every other human is capable of. This is one of the great lessons of war and life .
At one time, you could sit on the Rue de la Paix in Paris or at the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv or in Medina and you could see a person come in, black, white, it didn’t matter. You said, ‘That’s an American’ because there’s a readiness to smile and to talk to people.
We grow despite the horror that we feed upon our own tomorrow. We grow.
I have need of a friend. There is one and only one who will give the air from his failing lungs for my body’s mend. And that one is my love.
And one of my absolute favorite quotes of all-time, one that I’ve adopted as one of my greatest life mottos: Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: “I’m with you kid. Let’s go.”
A societies needs determines their ethics.
Take a month and show some kindness for the folks who thought that blindness was an illness that affected eyes alone.
Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise.
I’ve had people explain to me what one of my poems meant, and I’ve been surprised that it means that to them. If a person can use a poem of mine to interpret her life or his life, good. I can’t control that. Nor would I want to.
I’ve never had a dislike for men. I’ve been badly treated by some. But I’ve been loved greatly by some. I married a lot of them.
I love wisdom. And you can never be great at anything unless you love it. Not be in love with it, but love the thing, admire the thing. And it seems that if you love the thing, and you don’t just want to possess it, it will find you.
And I not only have the right to stand up for myself, but I have the responsibility. I can’t ask somebody else to stand up for me if I won’t stand up for myself. And once you stand up for yourself, you’d be surprised that people say, “Can I be of help?”