It is the human potentials that interest me. I travel and everywhere I go I am amazed at the presence of Nigerians. The intelligence, integrity, productivity, initiative.
Nigeria is so peculiar and dramatic. Even talking about the potentials before we talk about the negativities, Nigeria is a nation for perpetual study. I think in Nigeria, it is the potential which hits people and makes them believe in Nigeria. It tends to make them react when they see potentials being wasted and it is a tragedy to see potentials wasted. But paradoxically, it is a realization of the existence, that positive, that keeps many Nigerians and even foreign people going.
I don't know how it is, but the Germans are amazed at me and I am amazed at them for finding anything to be amazed about.
I am amazed at the response of my being on the show. Everywhere I go, every young person points at me and says "Hi, Aunt Dolly." Or "Are you Aunt Dolly?" I love doing the show and I love Miley and Billy Ray [Cyrus]. I am proud to be her honorary Godmother.
I was very excited when I first started to travel so much. In fact, I was amazed that people were paying me to travel to play the game I loved.
When I travel officially... and when I travel on a private basis, I have protection that is less suffocating. But I am protected everywhere.
Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity. Ours is a culture that measures our worth as human beings by our efficiency, our earnings, our ability to perform this or that. The cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living.
America, in the eyes of the world, typifies above all else this quality of initiative. The greatest successes are nearly all the fruit of initiative. Why do we hold in such high esteem the achievements of the Wright brothers? Because they were illustrious examples of initiative and tenacity. And ideas are born of initiative, the children of men and women of initiative. Advancement is applied initiative. Don't imitate. Initiate.
A change initiative can fail for multiple reasons - in fact, there are just too many things that can go wrong. The focus of the initiative might be wrong - too narrow or too broad. The initiative might be poorly executed or under-resourced. But most often, a change initiative fails because it hits a behavioral impasse. Something in the culture of the company is in conflict with the objective or execution of the initiative.
Everywhere I am the object of an unbelievable esteem, the interest in me is, quite simply, tremendous.
Books are great, but travel is the greatest teacher. If you have a choice, choose to travel. Not everywhere you go will be wonderful and life-altering; in fact, some places may underwhelm you and that, too, is an experience.
Every time I go to Veracruz, I feel like, OK, I am back. When my feet go to the ground on the earth, I think, 'This is me, this is home, these are my roots, and now I can go and travel again to wherever you want me to go.'
I love to travel the world. My husband and I always travel and everywhere we go I've been to Italy, of course London, Ireland, and you just receive so much love.
I travel all over the country speaking to young people, and I am always amazed at how engaged in environmental conservation they are.
I am a control freak, but not when I travel. For some reason when I travel, I am able to surrender more than in my real life. I am able to let go. I think it's why I like it so much.
Each day as I travel through downtown Tucson, I am amazed at how quickly the most ancient of human behaviors have changed. For as long as there have been Homo sapiens - roughly 200,000 years - people have filled their lives principally with two activities: talking directly with other people, and doing physical things.
I believe that the destructive nature of society that now threatens the existence of the entire human world has much to do with human intelligence. The way to overcome all human suffering-that also is through human intelligence.