Don't ever ever believe anyone who tells you that you can just get by by doing the easiest thing possible. Because there's always somebody behind you who really wants to do what you're doing. And they're going to work harder than you if you're not working hard.

Look I eat really well and I work out but I also indulge when I want to. I don't starve myself in an extremist way. You're not taking away my coffee or my dairy or my glass of wine because I'd be devastated.

I think I should be active politically. Because I look upon myself as a politician. That's not a dirty work you know. Some people think that there are something wrong with politicians. Of course something wrong with some politicians.

I wanted to be a doctor that I might be able to work without having to talk because for years I had been giving myself out in words.

But I work harder now because I have so much more exposure. And actually the harder you work as a writer the better you get at it. It's like anything else. It's a muscle you have to exercise. I write more now than ever.

I suppose I have a really loose interpretation of 'work ' because I think that just being alive is so much work at something you don't always want to do. The machinery is always going. Even when you sleep.

One is not idle because one is absorbed. There is both visible and invisible labor. To contemplate is to toil to think is to do. The crossed arms work the clasped hands act. The eyes upturned to Heaven are an act of creation.

It's hard to do it because you gotta look people in the eye and tell 'em they're irresponsible and lazy. And who's gonna wanna do that? Because that's what poverty is ladies and gentlemen. In this country you can succeed if you get educated and work hard. Period. Period.

Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.

People are saying that I'm an alcoholic and that's not true because I only drink when I work and I'm a workaholic.

The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work.

That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there you can move mountains.

Managers in all too many American companies do not achieve the desired results because nobody makes them do it.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Because all of us believe and understand in the fabric of the common bond of why we call ourselves American is to care for the men and women who wear the uniform and when they take off the uniform we care for them when they are veterans.

Because I am a woman I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail no one will say 'She doesn't have what it takes' They will say 'Women don't have what it takes.'

I don't work a five-day week as a rule and I've managed to fill that time up. It hasn't been that hard. I volunteer at school. I'm working because I love it. Yet I don't not envy women who have a stay-at-home job because you miss stuff.

I am the woman I grew to be partly in spite of my mother and partly because of the extraordinary love of her best friends and my own best friends' mothers and from surrogates many of whom were not women at all but gay men. I have loved them my entire life even after their passing.

Because of what's going on with the economy I think women are realizing that maybe they don't need a closet full of clothes. They just need the right clothes.

Childbearing is glorified in part because women die from it.

Whenever we have thanked these men and women for what they have done for us without exception they have expressed gratitude for having the chance to help - because they grew as they served.

You can't be a great mum and work the whole time necessarily those two things aren't ideal. We have an awful lot to work on and to debate about in relation to our working lives because it isn't working for a lot of people particularly for a lot of women.

I merged those two words black and feminist because I was surrounded by black women who were very tough and and who always assumed they had to work and rear children and manage homes.

People identify with me - everyone does - African American women Caucasian women they all identify with me because I'm ethnic.