There is the voice that everybody hears... saying to you, "You should do this, you should be this, you ought to, you got to." And then there is the still small voice - for some people not so small - inside every human being that calls you to something that is greater than yourself.
You will be wounded many times in your life. You'll make mistakes. Some people will call them failures but I have learned that failure is really God's way of saying, "Excuse me, you're moving in the wrong direction." It's just an experience, just an experience.
There are still generations of people, older people, who were born and bred and marinated in it, in that prejudice and racism, and they just have to die.
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.
What I know for sure is that pleasure is energy reciprocated. What you put out comes back. Your base level of pleasure is determined by how you view your whole life.
I'm starting to cry. I'm remembering those years I struggled with my weight, those times when I saw my reflection in a store window and didn't know who that fat person was, years when it was a big accomplishment for me to exercise at two dots on the StairMaster. And now I'm finishing a 26-mile race. Damn! This is better than winning an Emmy!