“I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.”
Maya Angelou
“Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.”
Joseph Campbell
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
“I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad itseems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I've learned thatyou can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things:a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I've learned thatregardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they'regone from your life. I've learned that making a living is not the same thing asmaking a life. I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on bothhands; you need to be able to throw some things back. I've learned that wheneverI decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I'velearned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one. I've learned thatevery day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, orjust a friendly pat on the back. I've learned that I still have a lot to learn. I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what youdid, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
“I do not trust people who don't love themselves and yet tell me, 'I love you.' There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.”
“I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that's rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.”
“While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God's creation.”