My mom, she was a very, very soft woman. It was hard for her to yell or even curse. But when it came to fighting for her kids, she found a strength she didn’t always know she had.

Strength was the virtue of paganism; obedience is the virtue of Christianity.

Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be.

Anywhere I go, there is always an incredible crowd that follows me. In Rome, as I land at the airport, even the men kiss me. I love Rome.

My kids are the funniest two human beings there are.

Everyone has been in love, at some point or another.

No man wants to settle down. It happens. Eventually you’re going to bump into somebody that makes you go, ‚Hmm, I don’t mind seeing this person every day.‘

Love is the most powerful thing in the world, and you know, what love brings is joy.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.

Our need for certainty in an endeavor as uncertain as raising children makes explicit ‚how-to-parent‘ strategies both seductive and dangerous.

I did stand-up for my grandparents every day when I was, like, eight.

There was the time I bought three cars in the span of three or four weeks. It was crazy; it wasn’t greedy. It was mine, my girl’s, my mom’s. I got Benzes for my ladies. But I felt crazy. You have to understand I come from a world where we’re very modest. But that’s not greedy. That’s nice, right?

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.

Marriage is scary to me, man.

To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

I have a son, who is my heart. A wonderful young man, daring and loving and strong and kind.

Men always want to be a woman’s first love – women like to be a man’s last romance.

There’s nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It’s a thing no married man knows anything about.

I’ve learned a lot since I was a new mother. My approach to struggle and shame now is to talk to yourself like you’d talk to someone you love and reach out to tell your story.

I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.

My father wasn’t perfect. He had a temper. I took some of that. He would snap, but the older he got, he started calming down. He learned about life, but the thing that he taught my whole family was that family was the most important thing and, no matter what, if a family member needs you, you go and help them out; you get there.

In cricket, my superhero is Sachin Tendulkar. He has always been my hero and will continue to remain so. Apart from him and outside cricket, my mother has remained my inspiration. Whatever difficult time I had faced, she was always there for me. She has given me all the strength. She maintained her composure and supported me in tough times.

Do not rebuke mockers, or they will hate you; rebuke the wise, and they will love you.

I can encourage my daughter to love her body, but what really matters are the observations she makes about my relationship with my own body.

We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love – first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.

It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.

Fear has its use but cowardice has none.

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.

Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.

The uncertainty of parenting can bring up feelings in us that range from frustration to terror.

He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave.

All the awards in the world, you can get into all the nightclubs, they’ll send you the nicest clothes. Nothing better than walking into your dad’s restaurant and seeing a smile on his face and knowing that your mom and dad and your sister are real proud of you.

I have never been bewildered for long in any fight with our enemies – I was Armed with Insight.

Sometimes, when I see my granddaughters make small discoveries of their own, I wish I were a child.

It’s better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life.

Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage.

Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.

The power of an air force is terrific when there is nothing to oppose it.

Love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.

As I grow up, the lessons I learn in love and relationships and how we treat each other are hopefully maturing – hopefully.

When you really don’t like a guy, they’re all over you, and as soon as you act like you like them, they’re no longer interested.

See, people are watching you. Especially your children. They’re taking in every single thing you do. They are like video cameras with legs. And they are always in the record mode. They learn more from what you do than from what you say.

Phil Niekro and his brother were pitching against each other in Atlanta. Their parents were sitting right behind home plate. I saw their folks more that day than they did the whole weekend.

Where thou art, that is home.

One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your child’s name and how old he or she is.

I’ve been my mom’s kitchen helper since I was a little kid.

But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.

I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity.

I have the people behind me and the people are my strength.

I love those who do not know how to live for today.

Life loves the liver of it.

In so far as the mind is stronger than the body, so are the ills contracted by the mind more severe than those contracted by the body.

God, our Creator, has stored within our minds and personalities, great potential strength and ability. Prayer helps us tap and develop these powers.

I am a very emotional guy. What I love, I do with all I have.

Have you not learned that strength comes to an ordinary soul when given an extraordinary calling?

I think if I keep working in the way that I am, from the heart and from passion and with love, well, the fruits of that will keep coming.

Love other human beings as you would love yourself.

In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it.

My family was a poor farming family, and we lived under absolute segregation.