“Mother's life flowed radiant. Flourescent-tipped waves on incoming tides.”

“Just like moons and suns,With certainty of tides,Just like hopes springing high,Still I'll rise.”

“My mother raised me, and then freed me,”

“My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy.”

“If I could give you one thought, it would be to lift someone up. Lift a stranger up--lift her up. I would ask you, mother and father, brother and sister, lovers, mother and daughter, father and son, lift someone. The very idea of lifting someone up will lift you, as well.”

“That knowledge humbles me, melts my bones, closes my ears, and makes my teeth rock loosely in their gums. And it also liberates me. I am a big bird winging over high mountains, down into serene valleys. I am ripples of waves on silver seas. I'm a spring leaf trembling in anticipation.”

“Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art.”