I had been taught that if I cried, to be quiet about it, so whereas I never howled, the least thing made me cry both at school and at home. Crying tends to separate a child from other children, for even children dislike a cry baby, and I had no friends in the world.

I had five children in six years. The day I brought my fifth baby home, that week, my daughter turned 6.

I never really had to put much thought into my race, and neither did anybody else. I knew I was black. I knew there was a history that accompanied my skin color, and my parents taught me to be proud of it. End of story.

You know the AME Church has a history of empowering black people and having an international outlook. So it was the women of the church who began to give Sarah Breedlove an image of herself as something other than an illiterate washerwoman, and she wanted to make her life better, and her daughter's life better.

My son, Walker, has a band called The Dust Busters. You know, he plays banjo, fiddle, guitar, and mandolin, so a lot of my interest in that kind of music comes from him constantly listening to this stuff. He's taught me the history of it. It's remarkable how these young kids are now turned on to more traditional old-time music.

No force can conquer the service personnel and people who, in support of their great leader, have turned out in the struggle to defend their country with confidence in the validity of their cause and their own strength - this is a law and a truth taught by history.

You don't hate history, you hate the way it was taught to you in high school.

One of my favorite things, as a critic, was finding books by new writers who possessed a distinctive voice and vision, an inventive gift for storytelling. I also loved immersing myself in works of nonfiction that taught me something about the world, that made the past come alive or shed light on hidden corners of history or the news.

Absolutely, I don't believe in rules. As I tell my daughter when she is mischievous, 'Well-behaved women rarely make history.'

If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.

If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.

They were afraid, never having learned what I taught myself: Defeat the fear of death and welcome the death of fear.

It is impious to say that evil has its origin from God, because naught contrary is produced by the contrary. Life does not generate death, nor is darkness the beginning of light, nor is disease the maker of health, but in the changes of conditions there are transitions from one condition to the contrary.

Cycling taught me to recognize that mental health is on a sliding scale. Some days you are up and some days you are down.

Everything we've been taught about health, weight loss and aging is wrong.

Hearty laughter is a good way to jog internally without having to go outdoors.

The sound of laughter is like the vaulted dome of a temple of happiness.

I try to be a good daughter, as I believe in karma and feel that how you are with your parents is directly proportionate to what you receive in your life. I am a big oneness follower, and our gurus have told us that if you want to achieve external happiness, you need to be happy internally. And your inner circle is your family.

Although I never married, my brother fortunately did, and I have had the pleasure of watching his three sons and daughter grow up. Several of them now have children of their own. We have been a close-knit family, although often separated by distance, and have shared each other's happiness, sorrows, and aspirations.

Live by this credo: have a little laugh at life and look around you for happiness instead of sadness. Laughter has always brought me out of unhappy situations.

I'm a very positive person. My grandmother taught me that happiness is both a skill and a decision, and you are responsible for the outcome.

I think most of us are raised with preconceived notions of the choices we're supposed to make. We waste so much time making decisions based on someone else's idea of our happiness - what will make you a good citizen or a good wife or daughter or actress. Nobody says, 'Just be happy - go be a cobbler or go live with goats.'

Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.

Sports are such a great teacher. I think of everything they've taught me: camaraderie, humility, how to resolve differences.