Oprah Winfrey

Yes. I'm at Harvard! Wow. To President Faust, my fellow honorands, Carl, that was so beautiful. Thank you so much.

And James Rothenberg, Stephanie Wilson, Harvard faculty, with a special bow to my friend, Dr. Henry Louis Gates. All of you alumni, with a special bow to the class of '88 and your $115 million. And to you members of the Harvard class of 2013.

Hello. I thank you for allowing me to be a part of the conclusion of this chapter of your lives and the commencement of your next chapter. To say that I'm honored doesn't even begin to quantify the depth of gratitude that really accompanies, an honorary doctorate from Harvard.

Not too many little girls from rural Mississippi have made it all the way here to Cambridge, and I can tell you that I consider today, as I sat on the stage this morning getting teary for you all and then teary for myself, I consider today a defining milestone in a very long and a, and a blessed journey.

My one hope today is to, is that I can be a source of some inspiration. I'm gonna address my remarks to anybody who's ever felt inferior or felt disadvantaged, felt screwed by life. This is a speech for the quad.

Actually, I was so honored I wanted to do something really special for you. I wanted to be able to have you look under your seats and there would be Free, master and doctorate degrees. But I see, I see you got that covered already.

I will be honest with you I felt a lot of pressure over the past few weeks to come up with something that I could share with you that you hadn't heard before because after all, y'all went to Harvard, I did not. But then I realized that you don't have to necessarily go to Harvard to have a driven, obsessive, type A personality. Mm, but it helps.

And while I may not have graduated from here, I admit that my personality is about as Harvard as they come. You know, my television career began unexpectedly. As you heard this morning, I was in the Miss Fire Prevention contest.