My philosophy is that not only are you responsible...

I don't think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good.

Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three, and soon discovered there was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi.

The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.

An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her.

Age appears to be best in four things old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

Youth is the best time to be rich, and the best time to be poor.

The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

Probably the happiest period in life most frequently is in middle age, when the eager passions of youth are cooled, and the infirmities of age not yet begun as we see that the shadows, which are at morning and evening so large, almost entirely disappear at midday.