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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.

-Maya Angelou

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Being Thankful Helps You

Maya Angelou

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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.

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

The White American Man Makes The White American Woman Maybe Not Superfluous But Just A Little Kind Of Decoration. Not Really Important To Turning Around The Wheels Of The State. Well The Black American Woman Has Never Been Able To Feel That Way. No Black American Man At Any Time In Our History In The United States Has Been Able To Feel That He Didn't Need That Black Woman Right Against Him, Shoulder To Shoulder-in That Cotton Field, On The Auction Block, In The Ghetto, Wherever.

I Do Not Need To Know All Things. I Remind Myself That It Is Sufficient That I Know What I Know And Know That Without Believing That I Will Always Know What I Know Or That What I Know Will Always Be True.

Shakespeare Must Be A Black Girl.

I Thought If I Could Face The Worst Danger Voluntarily, And Triumph, I Would Forever Have Power Over It.

And I Not Only Have The Right To Stand Up For Myself, But I Have The Responsibility. I Can't Ask Somebody Else To Stand Up For Me If I Won't Stand Up For Myself. And Once You Stand Up For Yourself, You'd Be Surprised That People Say, "can I Be Of Help?"

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?

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Creativity Or Talent, Like Electricity, Is Something I Don't Understand But Something I'm Able To Harness And Use.

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What You're Supposed To Do When You Don't Like A Thing Is Change It. If You Can't Change It, Change The Way You Think About It. Don't Complain.

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The Needs Of A Society Determine Its Ethics.

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When My Grandmother Died, I Realized That Even If I Had Millions Of Dollars, I Couldn't Find Her Anywhere On Earth. My Next Thought Was That I Would Die. I Looked At My Life And Thought, "i'm Afraid To Die." I Concluded That Whether I Was Afraid Or Not, I Would Die. It Was One Of The Most Important Crossroads In My Life, Once I Realized That No Matter What, I Would Do This Thing, The Next Step Was To Think, "if I Am Going To Do The Most Difficult And Frightening Thing - Dying - Is It Possible That I Could Do Some Difficult And Impossible Things That Are Good?"

Impossible Things

Education Helps One Case Cease Being Intimidated By Strange Situations.

Having Courage Does Not Mean We Are Unafraid.

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If You Have Only One Smile In You, Give It To The People You Love. Don't Be Surly At Home, Then Go Out In The Street And Start Grinning 'good Morning' At Total Strangers.

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

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

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Courage - You Develop Courage By Doing Small Things Like Just As If You Wouldn't Want To Pick Up A 100-pound Weight Without Preparing Yourself.

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Oh, The Holiness Of Being The Injured Party.

I'm Convinced Of This: Good Done Anywhere Is Good Done Everywhere.

We Agreed That Great Men And Women Should Be Forced To Live As Long As Possible. The Reverence They Enjoyed Was A Life Sentence, Which They Could Neither Revoke Nor Modify.

It's Very Hard For Adults To Maintain Respect And Romance So That A Love Affair Can Be Sustained Over Years.

We All Have That Possibility, That Potential And That Promise Of Seeing Beyond The Seeming.

I Come As One, But Stand As 10,000.

That Knowledge Humbles Me, Melts My Bones, Closes My Ears, And Makes My Teeth Rock Loosely In Their Gums. And It Also Liberates Me. I Am A Big Bird Winging Over High Mountains, Down Into Serene Valleys. I Am Ripples Of Waves On Silver Seas. I'm A Spring Leaf Trembling In Anticipation.

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Wonderful Things

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.

My Encouragement To You Is To Go Tomorrow To The Library.

My Son Is The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me. And Through Me - To A Lot Of People.

Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me

If You're Going To Live, Leave A Legacy. Make A Mark On The World That Can't Be Erased.

Love Is Many Things. It Is Varied. One Thing Love Is Not, Is Unsure.

If I Am Not Good To Myself, How Can I Expect Anyone Else To Be Good To Me?

I, With Millions Of Other Americans, Have The Same Dream Martin Luther King Jr. Had; When I Wake Up I Wish Some Of The Things I Dreamt Would Be True. I Wish That Little Black And White Boys And Girls Would Hold Hands Without Being Shocked At Their Nearness To Each Other And Say In A Natural Way, "we Have Overcome.

Difficult Is A Far Cry From Impossible. The Distance Between These Two Lies Hope. Hope And Fear Cannot Occupy The Same Space At The Same Time. Invite One To Stay.

There's A Place In You That You Must Keep Inviolate. You Must Keep It Pristine. Clean. So That Nobody Has A Right To Curse You Or Treat You Badly. Nobody. No Mother, Father, No Wife, No Husband, No-nobody. You Have To Have A Place Where You Say: 'stop It. Back Up. Don't You Know I'm A Child Of God?

Be Wary When A Naked Person Offers You His Shirt

I Do Not Think Of Myself As Unusually Creative. I Think We All Come From The Creator, Each Human Being Streaming With The Glory. So Each One Of Us Is Creative.

No Not Me Go Find Someone Else To Bring Down

The Difference Between Charity And Philanthropy Is The Distance Of The Soul... To Be Philanthropic Is To Give Something, To Be Charitable Is To Give One's Own Heart.

Since Time Is The One Immaterial Object Which We Cannot Influence Neither Speed Up Nor Slow Down Add To Nor Diminish It Is An Imponderably Valuable Gift.

Nathaniel Hawthorne Once Said That Easy Reading Is Damn Hard Writing.

Shelter Network's Programs And Services Are A Rainbow In The Clouds For Homeless Children And Adults.

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.

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

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 Am A Child Of God. I Always Carry That With Me.

All Knowledge Is Spendable Currency, Depending On The Market.

You May Not Control All The Events That Happen To You, But You Can Decide Not To Be Reduced By Them. Try To Be A Rainbow In Someone Else's Cloud. Do Not Complain. 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.

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!

You Can't Be Consistently Fair, Consistently Generous, Consistently Just, Or Consistently Merciful. You Can Be Anything Erratically, But To Be That Thing Time After Time After Time, You Have To Have Courage.

I Love To See A Young Girl Go Out And Grab The World By The Lapels.

Joy Is A Freedom. It Helps A Person To Find His/her Own Liberation. The Person Who Is Joyous Takes Responsibility For The Time He/she Takes Up And The Space That He/she Occupies. You Share It! Some Of You Have It ... You Share It! That Is What Joy Is! When You Continue To Give It Away You Will Still Have So Much More Of It.

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

Still, When It Looked Like The Sun Wasn't Going To Shine Anymore, God Put A Rainbow In The Clouds.

Laugh As Much As You Can.

I Had Read A Tale Of Two Cities And Found It Up To My Standards As A Romantic Novel. She Opened The First Page And I Heard Poetry For The First Time In My Life...her Voice Slid In And Curved Down Trough And Over The Words. She Was Nearly Singing.

The Loss Of Young First Love Is So Painful That It Borders On The Ludicrous.

When You Wish Someone Joy, You Wish Them Peace, Love, Prosperity, Happiness... All The Good Things.

We Allow Our Ignorance To Prevail Upon Us And Make Us Think We Can Survive Alone, Alone In Patches, Alone In Groups, Alone In Races, Even Alone In Genders.

Yet It Is Only Love Which Sets Us Free.

If We Are Bold, Love Strikes Away The Chains Of Fear From Our Souls.

Talent Is Like Electricity. We Don't Understand Electricity. We Use It.

Sometimes All You Need In Love Is To Make Each Other Happy, To Make Each Other Laugh. So Long As You Can Still Do That Ten Years Down The Line Then I Think You're Gold. Never Let The Laughter Slip From Your Relationship.

When I Write, I Tend To Twist My Hair. Something For My Small Mind To Do, I Guess.

When Asked How She Knows When Her Writing Is Where She Wants It To Be: "i Know When It's The Best I Can Do. It May Not Be The Best There Is. Another Writer May Do It Much Better. But I Know When It's The Best I Can Do. I Know That One Of The Great Arts That The Writer Develops Is The Art Of Saying, 'no. No, I'm Finished. Bye.' And Leaving It Alone. I Will Not Write It Into The Ground. I Will Not Write The Life Out Of It. I Won't Do That."

I Couldn't Tell Fact From Fiction, Or If The Dream Was True My Only Sure Prediction In This World Was You. I'd Touch Your Features Inchly. Beard Love And Dared The Cost, The Sented Spiel Reeled Me Unreal And I Found My Senses Lost.

I'm A Writer And Writers Either Have Good Memories Or Nothing At All.

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

I Think We Ought To Give Ourselves More Time. We Should Be More Patient With Ourselves And With Each Other.

You Can Ask Goodness In, Show It How Much You Like It, Make Room For It. And It Says, "oh, I Like This Place, I Think I'll Stay Here." Which Is Why People Go Into One House And Say, "i Want To Take My Shoes Off." At Another House, No Matter How Beautiful It Is, They Might Say, "hmm, I Can't Stay."

Living Well Is An Art That Can Be Developed: A Love Of Life And Ability To Take Great Pleasure From Small Offerings And Assurance That The World Owes You Nothing And That Every Gift Is Exactly That, A Gift.

I Keep On Dying, Because I Love To Live

We Must Create A Climate Where People Agree That Human Beings Are More Alike Than Unalike. The Only Way To Do That Is Through Education.

"baby, You Know?" My Mother Once Said To Me. "i Think You're The Greatest Woman I've Ever Met - And I'm Not Including My Mother Or Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt In That." She Said, "you Are Very Intelligent And You're Very Kind, And Those Two Qualities Do Not Often Go Together." Then She Went Across The Street And Got In Her Car, And I Went The Other Way Down To The Streetcar. I Thought, "suppose She's Right. She's Intelligent - And She's Too Mean To Lie." You See, A Parent Has The Chance - And Maybe The Responsibility - To Liberate Her Child. And My Mom Had Liberated Me When I Was 17.

We Can See, From California To New York, From Maine To Florida, Seattle To New Mexico - Everywhere There Are Women's Groups. Everywhere There Are Women Who Have Gotten Together To Examine Global Warming, And Women Who Have Gotten Together To Prepare Each Other For Single Parenting - There Are Women Who Have Come Together To Be Supportive To Those Whose Mates Are In Prison, Male Or Female, Partners Are In Prison. All Sorts Of Gatherings Of Women. I Mean, I'm Just Celebrating My 80th Year On This Planet, And I Look Back 50 Years Ago And There Was Nothing Like That.

There Is No Place Where God Is Not.

I Think All Poems Are Commissioned. They Just Come To Me Without Somebody Outside Commissioning Them. The Idea Comes And I Will Live With Them 'til I Get It As Close To What I Mean. I've Never Been Totally Satisfied. I've Come Close A Few Times.

Of All The Needs (there Are None Imaginary) A Lonely Child Has, The One That Must Be Satisfied, If There Is Going To Be Hope And A Hope Of Wholeness, Is The Unshaking Need For An Unshakable God. My Pretty Black Brother Was My Kingdom Come.

We Need Much Less Than We Think We Need.

When I Am Writing, I Am Trying To Find Out Who I Am, Who We Are, What We're Capable Of, How We Feel, How We Lose And Stand Up, And Go On From Darkness Into Darkness. I'm Trying For That. But I'm Also Trying For The Language. I'm Trying To See How It Can Really Sound.

One Must Learn To Care For Oneself First, So That One Can Then Dare To Care For Someone Else.

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

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.

When You Wish Someone Joy, You Wish Them Peace, Love, Prosperity, Happiness... All The Good Things.

I'm Considered Wise, And Sometimes I See Myself As Knowing. Most Of The Time, I See Myself As Wanting To Know. And I See Myself As A Very Interested Person. I've Never Been Bored In My Life.

Black Women Have Not Historically Stood In The Pulpit, But That Doesn't Undermine The Fact That They Built The Churches And Maintain The Pulpits.

When A Person Is Going Through Hell, And She Encounters Someone Who Went Through Hellish Hell And Survived, Then She Can Say, 'mine Is Not So Bad As All That. She Came Through, And So Can I.'

Poetry Gave Me Back My Voice.

The Best Candy Shop A Child Can Be Left Alone In, Is The Library

People Are Too Busy Putting Things Under Microscopes And So Forth. Creativity Is Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts.

I've Learned That Whenever I Decide Something With An Open Heart, I Usually Make The Right Decision.

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.

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?

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?

I Know That I've Been Guided By God. I Am Obedient.

I Have Heard It Said That Winter, Too, Will Pass, That Spring Is A Sign That Summer Is Due At Last. See, All We Have To Do Is Hang On.

I've Lived Many Places On The Planet, And I Still Have Friends In Many Places.

Sisterhood Means If You Happen To Be In Burma And I Happen To Be In San Diego And I'm Married To Someone Who Is Very Jealous And You're Married To Somebody Who Is Very Possessive, If You Call Me In The Middle Of The Night, I Have To Come.

Modesty Is A Learned Affectation. And As Soon As Life Slams The Modest Person Against The Wall, That Modesty Drops.

You May Encounter Many Defeats, But You Must Not Be Defeated. In Fact, It May Be Necessary To Encounter The Defeats, So You Can Know Who You Are, What You Can Rise From, How You Can Still Come Out Of It.

The Idea Of Overcoming Is Always Fascinating To Me. It's Fascinating Because Few Of Us Realize How Much Energy We Have Expended Just To Be Here Today. I Don't Think We Give Ourselves Enough Credit For The Overcoming.

Thank You, Always Say Thank You; It's The Greatest Gift You Can Give Someone; Because Thank You Is What You Say To God.

Saying Thank You

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

Have Enough Courage To Trust Love One More Time And Always One More Time.

Won't It Be Wonderful When Black History And Native American History And Jewish History And All Of U.s. History Is Taught From One Book. Just U.s. History.

Native American

When Someone Shows You Who They Are, Believe Them The First Time.

The Holy Spirit Upon My Left Leads My Feet Without Ceasing Into The Camp Of The Righteous And Into The Tents Of The Free.

Whining Lets The Brute Know There's A Victim For Him In The Neighborhood!

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.

Anyone Of Us Can Be A Rainbow In Somebody's Clouds. I Want The University Of Cincinnati To Be A Rainbow In The Clouds. The University Of Cincinnati Is Really A Possibility Of Hope; It Is A Rainbow.

Only Equals Make Friends, Every Other Relationship Is Contrived And Off Balance.

I Did What I Knew.. When I Knew Better, I Did Better

The Ache For Home Lives In All Of Us, The Safe Place Where We Can Go As We Are And Not Be Questioned.

The Best Comfort Food Will Always Be Greens, Cornbread, And Fried Chicken.

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.

It's One Of The Greatest Gifts You Can Give Yourself, To Forgive. Forgive Everybody.

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.

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

I Try To See Every Day As A Celebration.

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

I've Learned That Making A 'living' Is Not The Same Thing As 'making A Life'.

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.

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.

Having Courage Does Not Mean That We Are Unafraid. Having Courage And Showing Courage Mean We Face Our Fears. We Are Able To Say, 'i Have Fallen, But I Will Get Up.'

I Am Grateful To Have Been Loved And To Be Loved Now And To Be Able To Love, Because That Liberates. Love Liberates. It Doesn't Just Hold - That's Ego. Love Liberates. It Doesn't Bind. Love Says, 'i Love You. I Love You If You're In China. I Love You If You're Across Town. I Love You If You're In Harlem. I Love You. I Would Like To Be Near You. I'd Like To Have Your Arms Around Me. I'd Like To Hear Your Voice In My Ear. But That's Not Possible Now, So I Love You. Go.'

You Forgive Yourself For Every Failure Because You Are Trying To Do The Right Thing. God Knows That And You Know It. Nobody Else May Know It.

I Don't Think There's Such A Thing As Autobiographical Fiction. If I Say It Happened, It Happened, Even If Only In My Mind.

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.

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.

Growing Up, My Grandmother Did Not Want Worldly Music In The House. Then When I Went Out To California, I Started Listening To Spanish Music, Mostly Mexican Music. But Were I In Egypt, I Would Listen To The Music Of The People, Or If I Was In Italy, I'd Listen To Italian Music.

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Callan McAuliffe

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