In my work and in myself I reflect black people, women and men, as I reflect others. One day even the most self-protective ones will look into the mirror I provide and not be afraid.

If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.

I think there ought to be a strict separation or wall built between our religious faith and our practice of political authority in office. I don’t think the President of the United States should extoll Christianity if he happens to be a Christian at the expense of Judaism, Islam or other faiths.

I’m so wrapped up in my work that it’s often impossible to consider other things in my life. My marriage ended in divorce because of this, my relationship with Holly has suffered by this.

We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.

Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can – that is their secret.

Children are all foreigners.

When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade.

There is no man on Earth or devil in Hell who can keep you from the very best God put in you.

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

My music seems to have a bigger mission than I have, which is very soothing but also very strange because people see more in me than I see, which can be terrifying.

On the other hand, you have different fingers.

Taylor Swift’s audience can listen to me, but so can the street kids. I want to touch it all.

When I see myself as an old woman, I just think about being happy. And hopefully, I’ll still be fly.

It’s almost schizophrenic who I portray in my music.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in ‚renouncing‘ one’s own self, by which I mean making up one’s mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being ‚happy‘ or ‚unhappy‘ in the usual meaning of the words.

The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.

Everyone looks at your watch and it represents who you are, your values and your personal style.

Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, ‚But how can it be like that?‘ because you will get ‚down the drain,‘ into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.

When you hear people making hateful comments, stand up to them. Point out what a waste it is to hate, and you could open their eyes.

The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely the one who dropped it.

Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.

My job is to bring out in people what they wouldn’t dare do themselves.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

Every time somebody speaks of my honesty, there is someone who quivers inside me.

Sexism is part of every industry and must be addressed. But I try not to focus on the negative but the positive side of what we can bring.

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

In the land of my birth I cannot vote, whereas a young person of eighteen can vote. And why? Because he or she possesses that wonderful biological attribute – a white skin.

We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

Those who ‚abjure‘ violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf.

Even after Independence, we have had to face the poison of casteism and communalism. How long these evils will continue? Whom does it benefit?

Here comes 40. I’m feeling my age and I’ve ordered the Ferrari. I’m going to get the whole mid-life crisis package.

The fact is: It’s true what they say about the United States. It is a land of opportunity. It is too various to get bored with it.

I’m on record that it didn’t really traumatize me to do away with some people.

You can be a rank insider as well as a rank outsider.

We should not underestimate ourselves, because if lots of individuals go together then we can accomplish almost anything.

The world’s biggest power is the youth and beauty of a woman.

I am not the humblest person in the world. I admit that.

Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience.

When I wake up in the morning, I feel just like any other insecure 24-year-old girl.

Too often in life, something happens and we blame other people for us not being happy or satisfied or fulfilled. So the point is, we all have choices, and we make the choice to accept people or situations or to not accept situations.

If you feel that there’s the author and then the character, then the book is not working. People have a habit of identifying the author with the narrator, and you can’t, obviously, be all of the narrators in all of your books, or else you’d be a very strange person indeed.

We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.

How wonderful it is to be an American. We have known the best of times and the worst of times.

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.

Man, all lives matter.

First, I’m trying to prove to myself that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll convince myself that I’m an actress.

Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.

The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long standing and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it.

I have too many fantasies to be a housewife. I guess I am a fantasy.

I really have no interest in myself.

Don’t ever forget two things I’m going to tell you. One, don’t believe everything that’s written about you. Two, don’t pick up too many checks.

I felt like, for so many years – and I still even feel it – as a girl, you can’t really expect to go on stage and dress like a boy and jump around and scream with the audience and mosh and stuff, and every time that happens, I feel really proud.

I think organized labor is a necessary part of democracy. Organized labor is the only way to have fair distribution of wealth.

It’s like a jar of salad dressing sitting on a shelf… most of the seasoning settles to the bottom of the bottle. But when you shake that bottle up, all the ingredients mix together and then the dressing can add flavor to a salad. In the same way, we can stir ourselves up and regain the reverence, respect and awe we once had for the Lord.

I can never say ‚why‘ about anything I do. I suppose I can say ‚how‘ and ‚when‘ and ‚what.‘ But ‚why‘ is impenetrable to me.