Oprah Winfrey Acceptance Speech - 1998

Oh, Oprah. Wondrous Oprah!

There are the only possible words

that could follow what you just saw that can follow Maya Angelo.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Lifetime Achievement Award

to Oprah Whinfrey!

(Applause)

Well

Thank you. (breathes out)

This is, ah, this is certainly one of life's full circle moments for me.

Because it's so true

We are all beacons of light for each other.

And I'm grateful that Barbara Walters was there

for me to see that beacon of light. To become all that I could be today.

Thank you, Miss Barbara. Thank you.

I want to thank the Harpo Family,

And I want to thank the King World Family.

I want to thank everybody who has nurtured me.

Who stood in the gap for me.

Stedman, you're the sweetness man.

With the greatest integrity. Thank you for helping me to be

everything that I am and all that is to come.

Thank you, Gale. Thank you, Maya.

Thank you, all. You know, when I...from the beginning,

from the beginning, being a colored, then Negro, then black,

then African-American child

(laughter)

Growing up in Mississippi, my prayer was,

for as long as I can remember,

"God, use me. Use me. Use this life. I don't know what the future

holds for me. But I know that there is a vision for my life

that is greater than my imagination can hold.

Use me. Use me. What would you have me to do?"

And that dream, that desire, that prayer, brought me somehow to television.

and to be able to use this tremendous vehicle of television,

to go into people's homes and somehow be able to touch their lives

and to be the beacon that Barbara was for me.

To be a light, a hope, an understanding.

To share some sense of illumination that maybe sometimes reflects

people's lives and sometimes opens them up to themselves,

is the greatest blessing God could've given me.

And I want to continue to use television as we become more polarized

in this medium, I choose to use it in whatever way I can, we can,

to make people lead better lives.

To lead them to the highest vision possible for themselves.

That is the goal.

I thank you for this award.

Because it encourages me

to run on and see what the end will be.

Thank you!