I remember the first time that I realized that being black meant that I wasn't allowed certain things. It was in the fourth grade, and it was who I thought was my best friend not inviting me to his birthday party because I would be the only black kid there. It was the first time I ever felt restricted, and it certainly wasn't the last time.

I had a happy childhood in the suburbs of L.A. My parents instilled in us an appreciation of history, art and, most important, Motown. Jarron and I weren't allowed to listen to rap until we were 12. After our birthday I dashed to Target and bought DJ Quik's album 'Quik Is the Name.' I memorized every line.

I would recommend 'Lesson Of The Evil' to be given as a DVD gift on a child's 15th birthday. In Japan, children under 15 are not allowed to watch it. Plus, 'Lesson Of The Evil' is one film where the older you get, the more you will be able to understand and enjoy the film.

I grew up in a family where we weren't allowed to talk about beauty or to put any emphasis on physical appearance.

You are a human being and are allowed to be imperfect, and you are allowed to be flawed. There is a lot of beauty in your imperfections, in your uniqueness.

I became a conservative after a deeply profound spiritual awakening at which point I repented of my anger, and God allowed me to see reality.

I saw everyone else as 'normal' and myself as messed up in a way. And all of that made me so angry. Stealing allowed me to take my anger out on something else.

We're not accustomed to giving women the space to express the full range of emotions and flaws that men are permitted. Anger and aggressiveness aren't part of the scale of what is acceptable behavior in women, whereas men - in reality and in fiction - are allowed a much fuller range of emotion.

Female rage is not often acknowledged - never mind written about - so one of the questions I'm asking is, 'Are you allowed to be this angry as you grow older as a woman?' But I'm also trying to trace where my anger came from. Who made me the person that is still so raw and angry? I think that it's empowering to ask that question.

Boys have always known they could do anything; all they had to do was look around at their presidents, religious leaders, professional athletes, at the statues that stand erect in big cities and small. Girls have always known they were allowed to feel anything - except anger.

It's so rare to see a woman lose control and also gain it back. Women are always told, 'Oh, be in control of your feelings,' and a woman is never allowed to express her anger without being demonised as being PMS-y.

It's nice because success has allowed me to have a blast on stage, to be in the studio with amazing people, but I find it all a bit bizarre.

Ever since I felt the baby kick, it's such an amazing feeling, and it's really allowed me to embrace it. Once you feel this movement inside, it's just a whole different experience, so I love it now. It was tough at the beginning, but I'm past all that, and I love it now.

After all these years, it's still amazing what Obama is allowed to get away with. He says low gas prices in 2009 were caused by a terrible economy, but then claims that the lower number of illegal aliens crossing the border is because of his border policies, not the same lousy economy.

Being surrounded by great women and amazing role models and good teammates allowed me to unfold and evolve into the person that I am today.

All my life and all my experience, the events that have befallen me, the people I have known, all my memories, dreams, fantasies, everything I have ever read, all of that has been chucked onto the compost heap, where over time it has rotted down to a dark, rich, organic mulch. The process of cellular breakdown makes it unrecognizable. Other people call it the imagination. I think of it as a compost heap. Every so often I take an idea, plant it in the compost, and wait. It feeds on the black stuff that used to be a life, takes its energy for its own. It germinates,. Takes root. Produces shoots. And so on and so forth, until one fine day I have a story, or a novel....Readers are fools. They believe all writing is autobiographical. And so it is, but not in the way they think. The writer's life needs time to rot away before it can be used to nourish a work of fiction. It must be allowed to decay.

Mediocrity has allowed me to float by without too much pressure or judgement

We would be allowed to work and not cause any trouble for her, but she didn't want us to be any more successful than she was

What makes life sad and difficult these days is that you are not allowed to make mistakes. If you do, you will be laughed,mocked, ridiculed, humiliated and persecuted publicly. They will judge you on the mistakes you made. To make it even worse is that no one is willing to teach you or to correct you from your mistakes to make them right. So chances are .You will repeat the same mistakes again.

Having a valid reason why you commit crime. It doesn't make it right to commit crime and it doesn't take away the fact that doing crime is wrong and is not allowed.

Surely there must be some limit to how many times you're allowed to hurt another human.

In South Africa we have so much freedom and rights. I think South Africa It Is the only country where water and electricity is allowed to go on leave or to have some time off.

If we are not presenting ourselves with nuanced experiences and new knowledge, we will never be allowed to grow.

If we are not allowed to deal with small problems, we will be destroyed by slightly larger ones. When we come to understand this, we live our lives not avoiding problems, but welcoming them them as challenges that will strengthen us so that we can be victorious in the future.