Don't send funny greeting cards on birthdays or at Christmas. Save them for funerals when their cheery effect is needed.
If the culture doesn't work, don't buy it.
The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.
Sometimes you cannot believe what you see. You have to believe what you feel.
Keep your heart open for as long as you can, as wide as you can, for others and especially for yourself.
We've got a form of brainwashing going on in our country…. Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And that's what we do in this country. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. MORE IS GOOD. MORE IS GOOD. We repeat it--and have it repeated to us--over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all this, he has no perspective on what's really important anymore.
The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it.
I was in a no-win situation, so I'm glad that I won rather than lost
It's not anything that is just perpetuated by White America or just perpetuated by Black America. It's just a cultural understanding that you're just not a part of the equation when it comes to sexuality and I think that people mistake your lack of opportunity with the level of your talent.
You don't really know a song until you play it live.
Except that awards are competitive, which is a negative thing, they are wonderful for singling out deserving individuals and bringing their work to the attention of many potential readers who might otherwise have been totally unaware of them.