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At One Time, You Could Sit On The Rue De La Paix In Paris Or At The Habima Theater In Tel Aviv Or In Medina And You Could See A Person Come In, Black, White, It Didn't Matter. You Said, 'that's An American' Because There's A Readiness To Smile And To Talk To People.

-Maya Angelou

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At One Time, You

Maya Angelou

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At One Time, You Could Sit On The Rue De La Paix In Paris Or At The Habima Theater In Tel Aviv Or In Medina And You Could See A Person Come In, Black, White, It Didn't Matter. You Said, 'that's An American' Because There's A Readiness To Smile And To Talk To People.

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The Idea Is To Write It So That People Hear It And It Slides Through The Brain And Goes Straight To The Heart.

All Riddles Are Blues, / And All Blues Are Sad, / And I'm Only Mentioning / Some Blues I've Had.

We Are Loved By Love Itself. There Is Nothing Good That We Can't Do.

One Of The Saddest Things In The World Is To See A Cynical Young Person.

The Black Kids, The Poor White Kids, Spanish-speaking Kids, And Asian Kids In The Us - In The Face Of Everything To The Contrary, They Still Bop And Bump, Shout And Go To School Somehow. Their Optimism Gives Me Hope.

I Made The Decision To Quit Show Business. Give Up The Skintight Dresses And Manicured Smiles. The False Concern Over Sentimental Lyrics. I Would Never Again Work To Make People Smile Inanely And Would Take On The Responsibility Of Making Them Think.

One Isn't Necessarily Born With Courage, But One Is Born With Potential.

Take A Day To Heal From The Lies You've Told Yourself And The Ones That Have Been Told To You.

Soft You Day, Be Velvet Soft, My True Love Approaches, Look You Bright, You Dusty Sun, Array Your Golden Coaches. Soft You Wind, Be Soft As Silk My True Love Is Speaking. Hold You Birds, Your Silver Throats, His Golden Voice I'm Seeking. Come You Death, In Haste, Do Come My Shroud Of Black Be Weaving, Quiet My Heart, Be Deathly Quiet, My True Love Is Leaving.

Surviving Is Important. Thriving Is Elegant.

I've Tried To Be Totally Present, So That When I'm Finished With A Piece Of Work, I'm Finished. ... The Work, Once Completed, Does Not Need Me. The Work I'm Working On Needs My Total Concentration. The One That's Finished Doesn't Belong To Me Anymore. It Belongs To Itself.

To Grow Up Is To Stop Putting Blame On Parents.

I Suggest That The Great Art Belongs To All People, All The Time--that Indeed It Is Made For The People, By The People, To The People.

The Thorn From The Bush One Has Planted, Nourished And Pruned Pricks More Deeply And Draws More Blood.

In A Magazine, One Can Get - From Cover To Cover - 15 To 20 Different Ideas About Life And How To Live It.

Different Ideas

Politicians Must Set Their Aims For The High Ground And According To Our Various Leanings, Democratic, Republican, Independent, We Will Follow. Politicians Must Be Told If They Continue To Sink Into The Mud Of Obscenity, They Will Proceed Alone.

Don't Let Anybody Raise You. You've Been Raised.

Of Course, There Are Those Critics - New York Critics As A Rule - Who Say, 'well, Maya Angelou Has A New Book Out And Of Course It's Good But Then She's A Natural Writer.' Those Are The Ones I Want To Grab By The Throat And Wrestle To The Floor Because It Takes Me Forever To Get It To Sing. I Work At The Language.

When We Cast Our Bread Upon The Waters We Can Presume That Someone Downstream Whose Face We Will Never Know Will Benefit From Our Action, As We Who Are Downstream From Another Will Profit From The Grantor's Gift.

All My Work, My Life, Everything I Do Is About Survival, Not Just Bare, Awful, Plodding Survival, But Survival With Grace And Faith. While One May Encounter Many Defeats, One Must Not Be Defeated.

I Would Like To Be Known As An Intelligent Woman, A Courageous Woman, A Loving Woman, A Woman Who Teaches By Being.

Some Think, "if I Marry This Guy Who's Two Inches Taller Than I Am And Who Has A Nice Bank Account, I Won't Die. If I Buy Six Cars, I Won't Die. If I Hate Jews, I Won't Die. If I Hate Homosexuals, I Won't Die." They Think They Will Increase Their Life By Shunting Misery Onto Somebody Else, But It's Just The Opposite.

Each Of Us Has The Right And The Responsibility To Assess The Roads Which Lie Ahead, And Those Over Which We Have Traveled, And If The Future Road Looms Ominous Or Unpromising, And The Roads Back Uninviting, Then We Need To Gather Our Resolve And, Carrying Only The Necessary Baggage, Step Off That Road Into Another Direction. If The New Choice Is Also Unpalatable, Without Embarrassment, We Must Be Ready To Change That As Well.

Ritie, Don't Worry 'cause You Ain't Pretty. Plenty Pretty Women I Seen Digging Ditches Or Worse. You Smart. I Swear To God, I Rather You Have A Good Mind Than A Cute Behind.

We May Encounter Many Defeats, But We Must Not Be Defeated. It May Even Be Necessary To Encounter The Defeat, So That We Can Know Who We Are.

My Entire Stay There [high School] Might Have Been Time Lost If It Hadn't Been For The Unique Personality Of A Brilliant Teacher. Miss Kirwin Was That Rare Educator Who Was In Love With Information. I Will Always Believe That Her Love Of Teaching Came Not So Much From Her Liking For Students But From Her Desire To Make Sure That Some Of The Things She Knew Would Find Repositories So That They Could Be Shared Again.

Hold Those Things That Tell Your History And Protect Them.

If You Have A Person Enslaved, The First Thing You Must Do Is To Convince Yourself That The Person Is Subhuman. And Won't Mind The Enslavement. The Second Thing You Must Do Is Convince Your Allies That The Person Is Subhuman So That You Have Some Support. But The Third And The Unkindest Cut Of All Is To Convince That Person That He, She, Is Not Quite A First Class Citizen.

Whatever You Want To Do, If You Want To Be Great At It, You Have To Love It And Be Able To Make Sacrifices For It.

Though We Are Many, Each Of Us Is Achingly Alone, Piercingly Alone. Only When We Confess Our Confusion Can We Remember That He Was A Gift To Us And We Did Have Him. He Came To Us From The Creator, Trailing Creativity In Abundance. Despite The Anguish, His Life Was Sheathed In Mother Love, Family Love, And Survived And Did More Than That. He Thrived With Passion And Compassion, Humor And Style. We Had Him Whether We Know Who He Was Or Did Not Know, He Was Ours And We Were His.

Success Is Liking Yourself, Liking What You Do, And Liking How You Do It.

When Things Were Very Bad His Soul Just Crawled Behind His Heart And Curled Up And Went To Sleep

Life Loves The Liver Of It. You Must Live And Life Will Be Good To You.

Until Recently Each Generation Found It More Expedient To Plead Guilty To The Charge Of Being Young And Ignorant, Easier To Take The Punishment Meted Out By The Older Generation (which Had Itself Confessed To The Same Crime Short Years Before). The Command To Grow Up At Once Was More Bearable Than The Faceless Horror Of Wavering Purpose, Which Was Youth.

There Is An Amazing Something In The American Psyche Which Speaks About Courage, And It Says, 'yes I Can,' ... Yes, We Will Overcome It All Because We Have The Spirit To Do So.

God Puts Rainbows In The Clouds So That Each Of Us - In The Dreariest And Most Dreaded Moments - Can See A Possibility Of Hope.

Chasing Rainbows

I Would Be A Liar, A Hypocrite, Or A Fool - And I'm Not Any Of Those - To Say That I Don't Write For The Reader. I Do. But For The Reader Who Hears, Who Really Will Work At It, Going Behind What I Seem To Say. So I Write For Myself And That Reader Who Will Pay The Dues.

When The Human Race Neglects Its Weaker Members, When The Family Neglects Its Weakest One - It's The First Blow In A Suicidal Movement.

Whether You Are Happy Or Whether You Are Sad, It Is Wise To Remember You Are Really In Process.

I Believe That Each Of Us Comes From The Creator Trailing Wisps Of Glory. So At This Wonderful, Young Age Of 65, I Don't Know Yet What The Lord Has For Me To Do. I Try To Live Up To The Energy And To The Calling, But I Wouldn't Dare Say I Have Even Scratched The Surface Yet.

There's A World Of Difference Between Truth And Facts. Facts Can Obscure The Truth.

Women Should Be Tough, Tender, Laugh As Much As Possible, And Live Long Lives.

The Most Important Thing Is To Dare.

Important Things

Everything In The Universe Has A Rhythm, Everything Dances.

If It Is True That A Chain Is Only As Strong As Its Weakest Link, Isn't It Also True A Society Is Only As Healthy As Its Sickest Citizen And Only As Wealthy As Its Most Deprived?

Look Heavenward And Speak The Word Aloud. Peace. We Look At Our World And Speak The Word Aloud. Peace.

I'm Grateful To Be An American. I Am Grateful That We Can Be Angry At The Terrorist Assault And At The Same Time Be Intelligent Enough Not To Hold A Grudge Against Every Arab And Every Muslim.

When I Try To Describe Myself To God I Say, 'lord, Remember Me? Black? Female? Six-foot Tall? The Writer?' And I Almost Always Get God's Attention.

Love Costs All We Are And Will Ever Be. Yet It Is Only Love Which Sets Us Free. A Brave And Startling Truth.

Love Life. Engage In It. Give It All You've Got. Love It With A Passion Because Life Truly Does Give Back, Many Times Over, What You Put Into It.

My Work Is To Be Honest. My Work Is To Try To Think Clearly, Then Have The Courage To Make Sure That What I Say Is The Truth.

I Never Had That Feeling That I Had To Carry The Weight Of Somebody's Ignorance Around With Me. And That Was True For Racists Who Wanted To Use The 'n' Word When Talking About Me Or About My People, Or The Stupidity Of People Who Really Wanted To Belittle Other Folks Because They Weren't Pretty Or They Weren't Rich Or They Weren't Clever.

I Am Convinced That Most People Do Not Grow Up...we Marry And Dare To Have Children And Call That Growing Up. I Think What We Do Is Mostly Grow Old. We Carry Accumulation Of Years In Our Bodies, And On Our Faces, But Generally Our Real Selves, The Children Inside, Are Innocent And Shy As Magnolias.

The Woman Who Survives Intact And Happy Must Be At Once Tender And Tough.

If Men Are God's Gift To Women, Then God Must Really Love Gag Gifts.

You May Write Me Down In History With Your Bitter, Twisted Lies. You May Trod Me In The Very Dirt, But Still Like Dust, I'll Rise.

Faith Is The Evidence Of The Unseen.

I Have Enough Of Life In Me To Make Somebody Jealous Enough To Want To Knock Me Down. I Have So Much Courage In Me That I Have The Effrontery, The Incredible Gall To Stand Up. That's It. That's How You Get To Know Who You Are.

As Far As I Knew White Women Were Never Lonely, Except In Books. White Men Adored Them, Black Men Desired Them And Black Women Worked For Them.

Be Courageous, But Not Foolhardy. Walk Proud As You Are.

Everybody Born Comes From The Creator Trailing Wisps Of Glory.

We Must Be Warriors In The Struggle Against Ignorance

I Will Look After You And I Will Look After Anybody You Say Needs To Be Looked After, Any Way You Say. I Am Here. I Brought My Whole Self To You. I Am Your Mother.

The Human Heart Is So Delicate And Sensitive That It Always Needs Some Tangible Encouragement To Prevent It From Faltering In Its Labour.

When Women Take Care Of Their Health They Become Their Own Best Friend.

I Would Welcome A Friendship With Lynne Hinton. I Would Welcome An Invitation To Sit Down At Her Table, But Mostly I Would Welcome Her Next Book.

I Did Then What I Knew How To Do. Now That I Know Better, I Do Better.

Let's Tell The Truth To People. When People Ask, 'how Are You?' Have The Nerve Sometimes To Answer Truthfully. You Must Know, However, That People Will Start Avaoiding You Because, They, Too, Have Knees That Pain Them And Heads That Hurt And They Don't Want To Know About Yours. But Think Of It This Way: If People Avoid You, You Will Have More Time To Meditate And Do Fine Research On A Cure For Whatever Truly Afflicts You.

I Look At Some Of The Great Novelists, And I Think The Reason They Are Great Is That They're Telling The Truth. The Fact Is They're Using Made-up Names, Made-up People, Made-up Places, And Made-up Times, But They're Telling The Truth About The Human Being- What We Are Capable Of, What Makes Us Lose, Laugh, Weep, Fall Down, And Gnash Our Teeth And Wring Our Hands And Kill Each Other And Love Each Other.

Loving Someone Liberates The Lover As Well As The Beloved. And That Kind Of Love Comes With Age.

I Am Grateful To Be A Woman. I Must Have Done Something Great In Another Life.

To Those Who Have Given Up On Love: I Say, "trust Life A Little Bit.

If You Have A Song To Sing, Who Are You Not To Open Your Mouth And Sing To The World?

Because Of The Routines We Follow, We Often Forget That Life Is An Ongoing Adventure. . . Life Is Pure Adventure, And The Sooner We Realize That, The Quicker We Will Be Able To Treat Life As Art: To Bring All Our Energies To Each Encounter, To Remain Flexible Enough To Notice And Admit When What We Expected To Happen Did Not Happen. We Need To Remember That We Are Created Creative And Can Invent New Scenarios As Frequently As They Are Needed.

I’ve Got A Magic Charm That I Keep Up My Sleeve, I Can Walk The Ocean Floor And Never Have To Breathe.

You Can Only Become Great At Something You Are Willing To Sacrifice For

People Don't Always Remember What You Say Or Even What You Do, But They Always Remember How You Make Them Feel.

Here On The Pulse Of This New Day You May Have The Grace To Look Up And Out And Into Your Sister's Eyes, Into Your Brother's Face, Your Country And Say Simply Very Simply With Hope Good Morning.

All My Work, My Life, Everything I Do Is About Survival, Not Just Bare, Awful, Plodding Survival, But Survival With Grace And Faith. While One May Encounter Many Defeats, One Must Not Be Defeated.

We Can Learn To See Each Other And See Ourselves In Each Other And Recognize That Human Beings Are More Alike Than We Are Unalike.

Had I Not Had My Grandmother, Who Dared To Be My Rainbow In The Clouds, I Would Have Been Just Another Sexually Abused Barefoot Black Girl On The Roads Of Arkansas.

No Sun Outlasts Its Sunset, But Will Rise Again And Bring The Dawn.

Don't Trust People Who Don't Laugh. I Don't.

I Want To Be A Good Human Being. I'm Doing My Best, And I'm Working At It.

Naturally, If You Love Somebody, You Do Want To See Their Face Every Now And Again, But That's Not A Condition Of Your Love. People Often Get Possession Mixed Up With Love, And They Say, "if You Really Loved Me, You Would Call Me." How - When Life Is Going On? I Think Of You All The Time, And The Thought Of You Always Lifts My Spirits. But I'm Not Right At The Phone!

The Most Important Thing I Can Tell You About Aging Is This: If You Really Feel That You Want To Have An Off-the-shoulder Blouse And Some Big Beads And Thong Sandals And A Dirndl Skirt And A Magnolia In Your Hair, Do It. Even If You're Wrinkled.

I Will Write On The Pages Of History What I Want Them To Say. I Will Be Myself. I Will Speak My Own Name.

Loving Someone Liberates The Lover As Well As The Beloved. And That Kind Of Love Comes With Age.

When Things Were Very Bad His Soul Just Crawled Behind His Heart And Curled Up And Went To Sleep

If A Human Being Dreams A Great Dream, Dares To Love Somebody; If A Human Being Dares To Be Martin King, Or Mahatma Gandhi, Or Mother Theresa, Or Malcolm X; If A Human Being Dares To Be Bigger Than The Condition Into Which She Or He Was Born-it Means So Can You. And So You Can Try To Stretch, Stretch, Stretch Yourself So You Can Internalize, 'homo Sum, Humani Nil A Me Alienum Puto. I Am A Human Being, Nothing Human Can Be Alien To Me.' That's One Thing I'm Learning.

When I Passed Forty I Dropped Pretense, 'cause Men Like Women Who Got Some Sense.

Elimination Of Illiteracy Is As Serious An Issue To Our History As The Abolition Of Slavery.

Abolition Of Slavery

I'm Happy To Be A Writer - Of Prose, Poetry, Every Kind Of Writing. Every Person In The World Who Isn't A Recluse, Hermit Or Mute Uses Words. I Know Of No Other Art Form That We Always Use.

When We Decide To Be Happy We Accept The Responsibility To Bring Happiness To Someone Else.

We May Encounter Many Defeats, But We Must Not Be Defeated. It May Even Be Necessary To Encounter The Defeat So That We Can Know Who We Are. So That We Can See, "oh, That Happened, And I Rose. I Did Get Knocked Down Flat In Front Of The Whole World, And I Rose. I Didn't Run Away; I Rose Right Where I'd Been Knocked Down." That's How You Get To Know Yourself.

Pretty Women Wonder Where My Secret Lies.

A Rose By Any Other Name May Smell As Sweet, But A Woman Called By A Devaluing Name Will Only Be Weakened By The Misnomer.

Each Of Us Needs To Withdraw From The Cares Which Will Not Withdraw From Us. We Need Hours Of Aimless Wandering Or Spates Of Time Sitting On Park Benches, Observing The Mysterious World Of Ants And The Canopy Of Treetops.

Don't Face The Day Until You've Faced God.

Hate, It Has Caused A Lot Of Problems In The World, But Has Not Solved One Yet.

My Mission In Life Is Not Merely To Survive, But To Thrive

Will To Survive

Don't Bring Negative To My Door.

I Live In An Atmosphere Of Music.

Anger Is Like Fire. It Burns All Clean.

I Certainly Do Not Adore The Writer's Discipline. I Have Lost Lovers, Endangered Friendships, And Blundered Into Eccentricity, Impelled By A Concentration Which Usually Is To Be Found Only In The Minds Of People About To Be Executed In The Next Half Hour.

I Speak A Number Of Languages, But None Are More Beautiful To Me Than English.

We Are All Creative, But By The Time We Are Three Of Four Years Old, Someone Has Knocked The Creativity Out Of Us. Some People Shut Up The Kids Who Start To Tell Stories. Kids Dance In Their Cribs, But Someone Will Insist They Sit Still. By The Time The Creative People Are Ten Or Twelve, They Want To Be Like Everyone Else.

If I Have A Monument In This World, It Is My Son.

Oh, The Holiness Of Always Being The Injured Party. The Historically Oppressed Can Find Not Only Sanctity But Safety In The Stateof Victimization. When Access To A Better Life Has Been Denied Often Enough, And Successfully Enough, One Can Use The Rejection As An Excuse To Cease All Efforts. After All, One Reckons, "they" Don't Want Me, "they" Accept Their Own Mediocrity And Refuse My Best, "they" Don't Deserve Me.

On The Day Of Your Birth, The Creator Filled Countless Storehouses, Set Aside For Your Use And Yours Alone.

Live As Though Life Was Created For You.

I Have Respect For The Past, But I'm A Person Of The Moment.

Find Something You Like, Go Into A Room, Close The Door And Read It Aloud. Read It Aloud. Everybody In The World Who Likes Dance Can See Dance, Or Hear Music, Or See Art, Or Admire Architecture - But Everybody In The World Uses Words Who Is Not A Recluse Or Mute. But The Writer Has To Take These Most Common Things, More Common Than Musical Notes Or Dance Positions, A Writer Has To Take Some Adverbs, And Verbs And Nouns And Ball Them Up Together And Make Them Bounce.

You Never Get Over The Fear Of Writing.

I Find In My Poetry And Prose The Rhythms And Imagery Of The Best - I Mean, When I'm At My Best - Of The Good Southern Black Preachers. The Lyricism Of The Spirituals And The Directness Of Gospel Songs And The Mystery Of Blues Are In My Music Or In My Poetry And Prose, Or I Missed Everything.

I Walk Into A Room Just As Cool As You Please, And To A Man, The Fellows Stand Or Fall Down On Their Knees.

To Those Who Are Given Much, Much Is Expected.

Putting Down On Paper What You Have To Say Is An Important Part Of Writing, But The Words And Ideas Have To Be Shaped And Cleaned, Cleaned As Severely As A Dog Cleans A Bone, Cleaned Until There's Not A Shred Of Anything Superfluous.

We Are Not Just Flesh And Blood. And Our Hungers Are Not Going To Be Set Aside As Just Flesh And Blood.

Flesh And Blood

Early On, I Was So Impressed With Charles Dickens. I Grew Up In The South, In A Little Village In Arkansas, And The Whites In My Town Were Really Mean, And Rude. Dickens, I Could Tell, Wouldn't Be A Man Who Would Curse Me Out And Talk To Me Rudely.

Home Is That Youthful Region Where A Child Is The Only Real Living Inhabitant. Parents, Siblings, And Neighbors Are Mysterious Apparitions Who Come, Go, And Do Strange Unfathomable Thing In And Around The Child, The Region's Only Enfranchised Citizen.

I'm Sorry To Say That When Some People Get To Age 50, They Say, "well, That's The End, I'll Never Have To Do Sex Again." They Lay Down First And Get Up Last! But In Your Sixties, Everything Is Sweeter. You Have More Time.

A Story Went The Rounds About A San Franciscan White Matron Who Refused To Sit Beside A Negro Civilian On The Streetcar, Even After He Made Room For Her On The Seat. Her Explanation Was That She Would Not Sit Beside A Draft Dodger Who Was A Negro As Well. She Added That The Least He Could Do Was Fight For His Country The Way Her Son Was Fighting On Iwo Jima. The Story Said That The Man Pulled His Body Away From The Window To Show An Armless Sleeve. He Said Quietly And With Great Dignity, "then Ask Your Son To Look Around For My Arm, Which I Left Over There.

You Have To Develop Ways So That You Can Take Up For Yourself, And Then You Take Up For Someone Else. And So Sooner Or Later, You Have Enough Courage To Really Stand Up For The Human Race And Say, 'i'm A Representative. '

I'm Working At Trying To Be A Christian, And That's Serious Business. It's Like Trying To Be A Good Jew, A Good Muslim, A Good Buddhist, A Good Shintoist, A Good Zoroastrian, A Good Friend, A Good Lover, A Good Mother, A Good Buddy: It's Serious Business.

I Know For Sure That Love Saves Me And That It Is Here To Save Us All.

On This Platform Of Peace, We Can Create A Language To Translate Ourselves To Ourselves And To Each Other.

But Still, Like Air, I'll Rise

Oh, The Holiness Of Being The Injured Party.

I Don't Trust Anyone Who Doesn't Laugh.

It Is Better To Control Oneself, If One Can, And Not Hit Back. But On Certain Occasions, It Is Imperative To Defend Oneself. I Don't Think It's Fair To Ask Anybody Not To Defend Herself Or Himself.

The Truth Brings The Past Into The Present And Prepares Us For The Future. That's What Truth Does

Past Present Future

I Am Serious, So I Laugh A Lot. You Need To Laugh. You Don't Laugh Enough. I Don't Trust Anyone Who Doesn't Laugh.

I Think I Know That I Deserve Better. And So I Try For Better. I'm Never So Put Off That I Would Ever Walk Out Of A Place Not Having Tried The Best I Could.

We Are The Victims Of The World's Most Comprehensive Robbery. Life Demands A Balance. It's All Right If We Do A Little Robbing Now.

Everything In The Universe Has A Rhythm, Everything Dances.

If You Have Done The Best You Can Do And If You Have Gotten All You Could Extract From Something, You Have Given All You Had To Give, Then The Time Has Come When You Can Do No More Than Say Thank You And Move On.

If Funkytown Was A Trailerpark, This Guy Would Be A Double-wide.

Anything That Works Against You Can Also Work For You Once You Understand The Principle Of Reverse.

I Could Fall In Love With A Sumo Wrestler If He Told Stories And Made Me Laugh. Obviously, It Would Be Easier If Someone Was African-american And Lived Next Door And Went To The Same Church. Because Then I Wouldn't Have To Translate.

Falling In Love

Poetry Gave Me Back My Voice.

Love Life. Engage In It. Give It All You've Got. Love It With A Passion Because Life Truly Does Give Back, Many Times Over, What You Put Into It.

I Believe In Living A Poetic Life, An Art Full Life. Everything We Do From The Way We Raise Our Children To The Way We Welcome Our Friends Is Part Of A Large Canvas We Are Creating.

Inspirational Life

In All The World, There Is No Heart For Me Like Yours. In All The World, There Is No Love For You Like Mine.

I Love Wisdom. And You Can Never Be Great At Anything Unless You Love It. Not Be In Love With It, But Love The Thing, Admire The Thing. And It Seems That If You Love The Thing, And You Don't Just Want To Possess It, It Will Find You. But If You're In Love With The Thing, It May Run Like Hell Away From You.

Be Certain That You Do Not Die Without Having Done Something Wonderful For Humanity.

Inspirational Life

My Grandmother Told Me That Every Good Thing I Do Helps Some Human Being In The World. I Believed Her 50 Years Ago And Still Do.

Love Is That Condition In The Human Spirit So Profound That It Allows Me To Survive, And Better Than That, To Thrive With Passion, Compassion, And Style.

When I'm Writing, I Write. And Then It's As If The Muse Is Convinced That I'm Serious And Says, 'okay. Okay. I'll Come.'

My Life Has Been Long, And Believing That Life Loves The Liver Of It, I Have Dared To Try Many Things, Sometimes Trembling, But Daring Still.

To Those Who Have Given Up On Love: I Say, "trust Life A Little Bit.

Pretty Women Wonder Where My Secret Lies, Im Not Cute Or Built To Fit A Fashion Models Size.

Make Every Effort To Change Things You Do Not Like. If You Cannot Make A Change, Change The Way You Have Been Thinking. You Might Find A New Solution.

Dare To Let Your Dreams Reach Beyond You...

Those Who Have Something To Say Accept The Fact That That's Lonely. One Already Knows That There Will Be Adversaries.

You Can Only Become Truly Accomplished At Something You Love. Don’t Make Money Your Goal. Instead Pursue The Things You Love Doing And Then Do Them So Well That People Can’t Take Their Eyes Off Of You.

I Do Like To Have Guns Around. I Don't Like To Carry Them. But I Like - If Somebody Is Going To Come Into My House And I Have Not Put Out The Welcome Mat, I Want To Stop Them.

Time Itself Is An Individual Gift. It Is Wise To Cherish It Carefully And Give It Away Generously.

You Can't Use Up Creativity. The More You Use, The More You Have.

We May Act Sophisticated And Worldly But I Believe We Feel Safest When We Go Inside Ourselves And Find Home, A Place Where We Belong And Maybe The Only Place We Really Do.

It Is Impossible To Struggle For Civil Rights, Equal Rights For Blacks, Without Including Whites. Because Equal Rights, Fair Play, Justice, Are All Like The Air: We All Have It, Or None Of Us Has It. That Is The Truth Of It.

I Have Great Respect For The Past. If You Don't Know Where You've Come From, You Don't Know Where You're Going. I Have Respect For The Past, But I'm A Person Of The Moment. I'm Here, And I Do My Best To Be Completely Centered At The Place I'm At, Then I Go Forward To The Next Place.

To Be Left Alone On The Tightrope Of Youthful Unknowing Is To Experience The Excruciating Beauty Of Full Freedom And The Threat Of Eternal Indecision.

I Know, That Since Life Is Our Most Precious Gift, And As Far As We Can Be Absolutely Certain, It's Given To Us To Live But Once, Let Us So Live We Will Not Regret Years Of Useless Virtue, And Inertia, And Timidity, And Ignorance, And In Our Last Moments We Can Say: 'all My Life, All My Conscious Energies, Have Been Dedicated To The Most Noble Cause In The World, The Liberation Of The Human Mind And Spirit - Beginning With My Own'.

It’s The Fire In My Eyes, And The Flash Of My Teeth, The Swing In My Waist, And The Joy In My Feet. I’m A Woman Phenomenally.

Nothing Succeeds Like Success. Get A Little Success, And Then Just Get A Little More.

All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes.

I Wish That We Could Look Into Each Other's Faces, In Each Other's Eyes, And See Our Own Selves. I Hope That The Children Have Not Been So Scarred By Their Upbringing That They Only Think Fear When They See Someone Else Who Looks Separate From Them.

I Am Convinced That Words Are Things, And We Simply Don't Have The Machinery To Measure What They Are. I Believe That Words Are Tangible Things.

I Am The Dream And The Hope Of The Slave

African American

But From A Distance. I Would Have Left You Whole And Wholly For The Delectation Of Those Who Wanted More And Cared Less.

Whining Is Just Unbecoming.

Just Because I Am Wheelchair-bound Doesn't Mean I Don't Get Around.

When I Was Asked To Do Something Good, I Often Say Yes, I'll Try, Yes, I'll Do My Best. And Part Of That Is Believing, If God Loves Me, If God Made Everything From Leaves To Seals And Oak Trees, Then What Is It I Can't Do?

I Don't Trust Anyone Who Doesn't Laugh.

I Think A Nap Or A Rest Overnight Is Great. But Who Needs Three Days Of Rest? Please! The Second Day, You Might Die.

To Be Left Alone On The Tightrope Of Youthful Unknowing Is To Experience The Excruciating Beauty Of Full Freedom And The Threat Of Eternal Indecision.

Being Thankful Helps You To Be Present.people Commit Errors Because They Are Not Present.i Would Encourage Women And Men To Be Present - You'll Avoid Falling Into Certain Pits.for Instance, If You Know That A Person Has Just Lost His Wife Or Her Husband Or Lover, It's Unlikely That You Will Say Something That Will Hurt That Person's Feelings If You're Truly Paying Attention. You'll Make A Sweeter Life For Yourself And For Those Around You If You Are Present.

Be Wary When A Naked Person Offers You His Shirt

I Agree With Balzac And 19th-century Writers, Black And White, Who Say, 'i Write For Money.' Yes, I Think Everybody Should Be Paid Handsomely; I Insist On It, And I Pay People Who Work For Me, Or With Me, Handsomely.

Black And White

In The 16th Century, [niccolò] Machiavelli - In An Attempt To Get Back In The Good Graces Of The Powerful - Wrote A Slim Volume Called The Prince. In That Book He Showed The Powers That Be How To Control The People. That Book Is A Statement: Separate And Rule, Divide And Conquer. That's Five Hundred Years Ago And It Still Works, Because We Allow Ourselves To Be Lead Around With Holes Through Our Noses.

The Most Important Thing I Can Tell You About Aging Is This: If You Really Feel That You Want To Have An Off-the-shoulder Blouse And Some Big Beads And Thong Sandals And A Dirndl Skirt And A Magnolia In Your Hair, Do It. Even If You're Wrinkled.

At 50, I Began To Know Who I Was. It Was Like Waking Up To Myself.

If The Door Has Been Opened And I've Been Invited, Or If I'm Not Invited And I Somehow Know I'm Supposed To Go In There, I Put Myself Together And Go In, Praying All The While. I Try To Learn Something Before I Go In. I Try To Show Some Respect Of The Place I'm Going Into.

Life Loves To Be Taken By The Lapel And Told: 'i'm With You Kid. Let's Go.'

What Is A Fear Of Living? It's Being Preeminently Afraid Of Dying. It Is Not Doing What You Came Here To Do, Out Of Timidity And Spinelessness. The Antidote Is To Take Full Responsibility For Yourself - For The Time You Take Up And The Space You Occupy. If You Don't Know What You're Here To Do, Then Just Do Some Good.

At Fifteen Life Had Taught Me Undeniably That Surrender, In Its Place, Was As Honorable As Resistance, Especially If One Had No Choice.

In All My Work, I Try To Say - 'you May Be Given A Load Of Sour Lemons, Why Not Try To Make A Dozen Lemon Meringue Pies?'

I Think We All Have Empathy. We May Not Have Enough Courage To Display It.

I Was Raped When I Was Very Young. I Told My Brother The Name Of The Person Who Had Done It. Within A Few Days The Man Was Killed. In My Child's Mind--seven And A Half Years Old--i Thought My Voice Had Killed Him. So I Stopped Talking For Five Years.

You May Shoot Me With Your Words, You May Cut Me With Your Eyes, You May Kill Me With Your Hatefulness, But Still, Like Air, I'll Rise!

A Rose By Any Other Name May Smell As Sweet, But A Woman Called By A Devaluing Name Will Only Be Weakened By The Misnomer.

At The End Of The Day People Won't Remember What You Said Or Did, They Will Remember How You Made Them Feel.

The End Of The Day

I Think A Hero Is Any Person Really Intent On Making This A Better Place For All People.

People Trying To Separate People Rather Than Bring Us Together... Please. You Don't Just See It In America. It's All Over The World.

Life Loves The Liver Of It. You Must Live And Life Will Be Good To You.

Growing Up At My Grandmother's Table, She Always Had Rice. She Might Do Something As Exotic As Potatoes Or Spaghetti, But There Was Still Always Rice, Just In Case You Needed A Little Rice Fix.

Few, If Any, Survive Their Teens. Most Surrender To The Vague But Murderous Pressure Of Adult Conformity.

Surviving Is Important. Thriving Is Elegant.

Though We Are Many, Each Of Us Is Achingly Alone, Piercingly Alone. Only When We Confess Our Confusion Can We Remember That He Was A Gift To Us And We Did Have Him. He Came To Us From The Creator, Trailing Creativity In Abundance. Despite The Anguish, His Life Was Sheathed In Mother Love, Family Love, And Survived And Did More Than That. He Thrived With Passion And Compassion, Humor And Style. We Had Him Whether We Know Who He Was Or Did Not Know, He Was Ours And We Were His.

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