All these years I've been feeling like I was growing into myself. Finally, I feel grown.
I still love church. My favorite church service is T.D. Jakes at the Potter's House. I don't think there is a better preacher in the country. His ability to interpret scripture is like no other.
You teach people how to treat you.
The nature of Buddhism, as I understand it, is to believe that we are all pure and radiant at our core. And yet we see around us so much evidence that people are not acting from a place of purity and radiance.
Everybody looks at their poop.
It's not easy being grateful all the time. But it's when you feel least thankful that you are most in need of what gratitude can give you
Life has taught me to just be the best I can be.
What you put out is already on its way back to you.
Check your ego at the door and check your gut instead. Every right decision I have ever made has come from my gut. Every wrong decision I've made was the result of me not listening to the greater voice of myself
I was in a conversation and someone said: "You know, we were talking about the whole issue of transgender and how it has become so accepted now, and somebody said, 'You know the Oprah show, I think has had a big impact.'" I said, I don't think so. We did several transgender [shows], but we didn't do as much for transgender as I did for, say, abused kids or battered women. And they said, "But no, you started the conversation. You started the conversation and the conversation has led us to here."
Would you do your job and not be paid for it? I would do this job, and take on a second job just to make ends meet if nobody paid me. That’s how you know you are doing the right thing.
After all these years, I could say thank you to a woman who had a powerful impact on my early life.
My first day in Chicago, September 4, 1983. I set foot in this city, and just walking down the street, it was like roots, like the motherland. I knew I belonged here.
You can find the sacred in the most ordinary of things.
You become excellent, and when you become excellent, no-one can take that away from you.
I don't know what kind of egomaniac is sitting at home thinking about the impact they have had on the culture. It's not something I actually think about until it comes up.
There are so many people who've come before me who deserved to be tired. Who didn't have the opportunities, who didn't have the access, who didn't have the money, who didn't have the influence, who didn't have the voice.
I am extremely spiritual. I've not gone into this before because it's personal, but faith is the core of my life.
I don't have a lot of "I can't" inside me.
A lesson will keep repeating itself until it is learned. Life first will send the lesson to you in the size of a pebble; if you ignore the pebble, then life will send you a brick; if you ignore the brick, life will send you a brick wall; if you ignore the brick wall, life will send you a demolition truck.
If you come to fame not understanding who you are, it will define who you are. It shouldn't change you. If you're a jerk, you just get to be a bigger jerk. What fame does is magnify who you are and puts that on a platter for the whole world to see.
Be quiet. Part of your responsibility is to honour the quiet inside yourself so you can hear the call.
You are awareness disguised as a human being.
I set out to really build this universe of interfaith connectedness, where people could see that other people in different parts of the world are very much like them.
Can you see me? Can you hear me? Does anything I say mean anything to you?
