Belva Davis

If I was on the air and was just kind of a plain-vanilla personality that took the safe road and the safe way trying to please all of the people all of the time, I’d been gone in two weeks.

There it is: it doesn’t make any difference who we are or what we are, there’s always somebody to look down on! somebody to hold in light esteem, somebody to be indifferent about.

Whatever your goal in life, the beginning is knowledge and experience- or, briefly work.

The think I remember most about Brooklyn was how much I wanted to get out of Brooklyn.

A single question can be more influential than a thousand statements.

When hungry, eat your rice; when tired, close your eyes. Fools may laugh at me, but wise men will know what I mean.

If the people really set their minds on anything it is impossible to prevent their getting what they want.

Who is wise? He who learns from all men.

This is the time. This is the place. This is the vastness. Right here is paradise. Always. Always.

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.

But to do for the world more than the world does for you, that is Success.

She had no need to ask why he had come. She knew as certainly as if he had told her that he was here to be where she was.

I’m beginning to understand myself. But it would have been great to be able to understand myself when I was 20 rather than when I was 82.

Life is like improvised jazz. We cannot regulate all the variables. We must play it with panache and flair as best we can.