"My first impression when I made it through was 'Good, because I'm going to prove to you that I deserve to be here', because they told me that sometimes I lack confidence in my performance and sometimes I'm not as consistent as they'd like me to be."

"Always stay true to yourselves."

"If my life was a song the title would be 'Naima'."

"It's believing you can push through the exhaustion just to be able to sing after you do a cartwheel or a split."

"All War Departments are now Defense Departments. This is all part of the doubletalk of our time. The aggressor is always on the other side."

"I have for some time urged that a nuclear abolition summit to mark the effective end of the nuclear era be convened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 70th anniversary of the bombings of those cities, with the participation of national leaders and representatives of global civil society."

"I like four-hour movies."

"Southern political personalities, like sweet corn, travel badly. They lose flavor with every hundred yards away from the patch. By the time they reach New York, they are like Golden Bantam that has been trucked up from Texas - stale and unprofitable. The consumer forgets that the corn tastes different where it grows."