Womanhood... not at all a pretty sight

If we let it change us then they will have won

This is not an ending of my choosing. From now on I will choose my own endings

He had never heard a name for such a person. Did such a hybrid thing even exist?

Promise me that you will not become a politician... promise me you will become a real revolutionary instead.

Choosing instead to step on a landmine and be blown to pieces

Marcus felt that their beauty was not to be trusted. It was a dangerous beauty

We are your family now

If people saw him building a giant pair of silver wings, then they too would believe that they could fly

You cannot break me. You see, I know for certain that my parents were capable of flight

Valentine loved the idea that flight was possible for someone like him. Valentine believed.

This was how they learned their most valuable lesson about death - that after it there is life again, that things that perish will rise again, that after every ending there is another beginning

It is our reality, the way we live now, our truth. So of course we cannot acknowledge it, let alone print it

The sad truth is that the civil rights movement cannot be reborn until we identify the causes of black suffering, some of them self-inflicted. Why can't black leaders organize rallies around responsible sexuality, birth within marriage, parents reading to their children and students staying in school and doing homework?

In my old age, my mind gets more open, and I listen to so many different types of music and I guess that all reflects in my work.

I try not to censor myself at all.

Eventually, I think you find a spiritual and emotional connection with someone, and I think it unifies you with everyone else. I think if you love one person, it makes you love everyone. That's how I feel now.

An absolutely necessary part of a writer's equipment, almost as necessary as talent, is the ability to stand up under punishment, both the punishment the world hands out and the punishment he inflicts upon himself.

I started boxing at 12, and I was above weight for my age, so they put me in the ring with adults... When you're fighting all the time, it gives you the ability to fight without getting angry.

I say I'm the best actor in America who's never done a movie.

One of the major goals of health insurance reform is to bring down the cost.

You need a balance in life. You just cannot be all the time on an adrenalin peak. You need to recharge.

For the choke, there are no 'Tough guys'. With an arm lock he can be tough and resist the pain. With the choke he just passes out, goes to sleep.

Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever.

I don't enjoy jazz guitar in general. I don't enjoy listening to a lot of it. I don't enjoy the tone. In general I've found its role in jazz to be kind of difficult.

I started playing in the band and learned to play piano by ear.

Weekends are a bit like rainbows they look good from a distance but disappear when you get up close to them.

How can you practice dancing in an airplane? There's a law against it.

Total openness to serving others is our hallmark, it alone is our title of honor!

There really is no difference between the bully and the victim.

I think for most actors, because we sort of have to tell ourselves this, we always say, 'Oh, it doesn't mean anything to win an Oscar!' It certainly isn't a goal that you want to set yourself up for, because then you're just setting yourself up for disaster. Because how many people actually win an Oscar?

I am obsessed with planning travel! Not just traveling, which I love, but the whole planning process and all the details that go into it. I subscribe to all these travel blogs and airline forums and research hotels and activities and destinations for hours on end, and I volunteer to plan trips for everyone I know.

Self-esteem is made up primarily of two things: feeling lovable and feeling capable.

I think everything we do, on one level or another, as writers, most of our writing is informed by our world view.

Addiction is a really hard thing to kick.

I am a queen because I know how to govern myself.

If I wasn't acting or doing stand-up, I would be in animation. Or if I had the discipline I might studies physics.