Quote: Taj Mahal life: When NDTV asked, "You think you're going to ask for a Taj Mahal to be built for you?", Oprah replied, "I think it would be completely unnecessary. I think my life has been the Taj Mahal, I think."
Quote: If I were going to be married I think the person I have chosen to partner over the years would be a wonderful person to do that with. I think had we got married we would have probably been divorced by now and he would agree... I am not saying this disrespectfully.. He would agree because I really am my own woman and I don't really conform very well to other people's ideas about who and when I should be and you know being married calls for some conformity.
Quote: When I was interviewing a woman who was sexually abused, I had done it a couple of years earlier, interviewed a woman, and I so wanted to tell her, I so wanted to say, "That happened to me too" and I didn't have the courage to do it. And I thought if I ever got an opportunity again I would not hide in shame about it, but that I would let that other person know. So I really just did it for that one person.
Quote Now, when I had Aishwarya and Abhishek on my show, I was asking the question, as Americans do like how on earth do you all live with your parents? What's that all about? And he said to me, "What is that all about that you don't?" And it's the kind of thing that's really a foreign concept to those of us in America because you're just waiting to get out of the house. But having spent some time, and having a dinner at a home with a family with 4 generations in one house, I now get it. I really get a sense of how really glorious it is that this is a country that has no respect for nursing homes because you take care of your family and you don't put your family in nursing homes. I think that's a....I'm most amazed by that.
Quote: . I remember being in Africa, several years ago and I remember my staff and producer had been in a village in Africa and they came back and they had this footage of a child eating out of the trough with a pig and I said, I won't be showing that because that isn't the only impression, and that would be an impression which would be a lasting impression. So I don't want to show that because if you're a viewer, sitting at home in America or India or wherever and you see a child eating out of a trough with a pig. You think that that demeans the humanity of that child. So it was important for me to go to the slums but not show the worst of the worst because what I wanted for people to see was that people could live in poverty but still have a sense of hope and meaning in their lives.
Quote: If you show people eating out of garbage, then people think that those people are not like me. If you show someone who's living in dire circumstances, but still wants the opportunity for a better life for themselves, it's still the same story, it's the same story. But it allows you to see that there is light in the story.
Quote: Standing in the Ashram, with all of these widows who have been discarded simply because their husbands died. The shift for me was. This should not be allowed to happen…. Where intelligent women stand to allow the pervasive discrimination of a woman because her husband died....for something you don't have any control over. So you become a second class citizen. But I also had an 'Aha' moment in the midst of it because it's so easy to judge and say, "Oh my god, look at what they're doing". In the midst of interviewing Dr. Geri, she said you know it happens....because I was asking is it just a...is it a caste thing...the situation? Or is it a class situation? Because certainly if you are a woman of privilege and your husband dies, this doesn't happen to you. She said ‘You know it's subtle.' When you're a woman of privilege and your husband dies, you just don't get invited to as many parties. You're not included....true? And you know when she said that, for the first time I thought you know I've never spoken to widows in the United States, I'm sure it's true all over the world.
Quote: I was born at the right time because the greatest gift to me is that even though I was born in a segregated southern United States, Mississippi, at the time, my great fortune was that I was never put into a segregated school. So, not for one moment, was I ever indoctrinated with the idea that I was less than anybody else. I could feel it all around me. I could feel that my grandmother's greatest hope for me was that I would one day grow up and be a maid like herself. She wanted me to be able to work for a family that... She was just like, "I hope you get some good white folks. I hope you get some good white folks.", because that's her dream. That was her dream for me that I would be able to work for a family that would be able to give me some level of respect and, you know, maybe let me take clothes home. It wasn't even her dream that I could become a teacher in a segregated school, but just that I would be able to work for a family that would not disrespect me. So, my grandmother never lived to see that I became an educated woman and was able to do all the things that I have done.
Quote: In the third grade, I loved to read, so it's so appropriate that I am at the Jaipur Book Festival. Loved to read. Third grade, I turned in a book report early. We were given an assignment. I turned mine in... We had two weeks. I turned it in the first week, like 2-3 days, because I was finished and wanted another book. I learnt from that lesson in the third grade that when you are excellent people pay attention, because my third grade teacher told the fourth grade teacher, who told the fifth grade teacher. So that by the time I got to the fourth grade they were like, "You are that kid who likes to read. I know you. You are the kid who turns in your things early." All the other kids hated me. All the other kids hated me but I learnt then that when you are excellent, people notice.
Quote: I came here with an open mind, and had not just my mind open but an expanded heart. I would say, as I said to, I've been emailing back to my friends and texting. This is really one of the greatest, if not greatest, life experiences I've ever had. And the reason is that when you're in the heart of India whether it's in Jaipur, or Agra, or you know Mumbai or out in the countryside with the widows, you feel like you're in the center of something bigger and greater than yourself.
