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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.

-Maya Angelou

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Home Is That Youthful

Maya Angelou

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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.

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We Need To Not Be In Denial About What We've Done, What We've Come Through. It Will Help Us If We All Do That.

People Will Never Forget How You Made Them Feel.

I Can Be Changed By What Happens To Me. But I Refuse To Be Reduced By It.

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I've Learned That Regardless Of Your Relationship With Your Parents, You'll Miss Them When They're Gone From Your Life.

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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.

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.

Black People Comprehend The South. We Understand Its Weight. It Has Rested On Our Backs... I Knew That My Heart Would Break If Ever I Put My Foot Down On That Soil, Moist, Still, With Old Hurts. I Had To Face The Fear/loathing At Its Source Or It Would Consume Me Whole.

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The Sadness Of The Women's Movement Is That They Don't Allow The Necessity Of Love. See, I Don't Personally Trust Any Revolution Where Love Is Not Allowed.

No Human Being Can Be More Human Than Another Human Being. I Liberate You From My Ignorance.

African American

I Never Expected Anyone To Take Care Of Me, But In My Wildest Dreams And Juvenile Yearnings, I Wanted The House With The Picket Fence From June Allyson Movies. I Knew That Was Yearning Like One Yearns To Fly.

You Will Face Many Defeats In Your Life, But Never Let Yourself Be Defeated.

When I Want To Think About What Would Be The Right Thing To Do, The Fair Thing To Do, The Wise Thing To Do, I Can Just Think Of My Grandmother. I Can Always Hear Her Say, "now Sister, You Know What's Right. Just Do Right!"

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Being Free Is Being Able To Accept People For What They Are, And Not Try To Understand All They Are Or Be What They Are.

You Build Your 'courage Muscle' Daily, By Being Courageous In Little Things. Just Do Right.

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.

The Desire To Reach For The Stars Is Ambitious. The Desire To Reach Hearts Is Wise.

I'm Very Blessed That I Have A Healthy Temper. I Can Become Quite Angry And Burning In Anger, But I Have Never Been Bitter. Bitterness Is A Corrosive, Terrible Acid. It Just Eats You And Makes You Sick.

I Am Overwhelmed By The Grace And Persistence Of My People.

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You May Not Control All The Events That Happen To You, But You Can Decide Not To Be Reduced By Them.

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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.

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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.

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Oh, Black Known And Unknown Poets, How Often Have Your Auctioned Pains Sustained Us? Who Will Compute The Lonely Nights Made Less Lonely By Your Songs, Or By The Empty Pots Made Less Tragic By Your Tales? If We Were A People Much Given To Revealing Secrets, We Might Raise Monuments And Sacrifice To The Memories Of Our Poets, But Slavery Cured Us Of That Weakness.

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This Is My Life. It Is My One Time To Be Me. I Want To Experience Every Good Thing.

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.'

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Hope Is Born Again In The Faces Of Children.

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To Describe My Mother Would Be To Write About A Hurricane In Its Perfect Power. Or The Climbing, Falling Colors Of A Rainbow.

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Anger Is Like Fire. It Burns All Clean.

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It Is Very Dangerous To Make A Person Larger Than Life Because, Then, Young Men And Women Are Tempted To Believe, Well, If He Was That Great, He's Inaccessible, And I Can Never Try To Be That Or Emulate That Or Achieve That.

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If One Is Lucky, A Solitary Fantasy Can Totally Transform One Million Realities.

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The Plague Of Racism Is Insidious, Entering Into Our Minds As Smoothly And Quietly And Invisibly As Floating Airborne Microbes Enter Into Our Bodies To Find Lifelong Purchase In Our Bloodstreams.

If We Are Honest And Fair, Then We Are Known By That. If We Are Not, Alas, We Are Known By That As Well. What We Want To Do Is Do Right, But You Have To Say It, You Have To Show It, And Not Stop.

I Believe That The Most Important Single Thing, Beyond Discipline And Creativity Is Daring To Dare.

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

We Have To Confront Ourselves. Do We Like What We See In The Mirror? And, According To Our Light, According To Our Understanding, According To Our Courage, We Will Have To Say Yea Or Nay - And Rise!

By Love I Don't Mean Indulgence. I Do Not Mean Sentimentality. And In This Instance, I Don't Even Mean Romance. I Mean That Condition That Allowed Humans To Dream Of God.that Condition That Allowed The "dumb" To Write Spirituals And Russian Songs And Irish Lilts. That Is Love, And It's So Much Larger Than Anything I Can Conceive.

People Have To Feel Needed. Frequently, We Just Offer A Job And 'perks.' We Don't Always Offer People A Purpose. When People Feel There Is A Purpose And That They're Needed, There's Not Much Else To Do Except Let Them Do The Work.

If I'm The People's Poet, Then I Ought To Be In People's Hands - And, I Hope, In Their Heart.

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.

You Know, I Never Trust People Who Don't Laugh, Who Said, "i Am Serious" And Act As If They Put Airplane Glue On The Back Of Their Hands And Stuck The Glue To Their Foreheads. I Think, "you're Not Serious; You're Boring As Hell."

In Diversity There Is Beauty And There Is Strength.

Shakespeare Must Be A Black Girl.

Remember, People Will Judge You By Your Actions Not Your Intentions. You May Have A Heart Of Gold But So Does A Hard-boiled Egg.

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.

Poetry Is Music Written For The Human Voice.

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.

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

Poetry And Music Are The Best At The Highest Level Of The Human Mind. Out Of Poetry, Out Of Their Need For Poetry, Human Beings Have Developed The Idea Of God. And So When We Sing, When We Dance, When We Speak Poetry We Are Speaking Out Of God's Mouth, Each Other Out Of The Music From God's Heart.

You Can't Forgive Without Loving. And I Don't Mean Sentimentality. I Don't Mean Mush. I Mean Having Enough Courage To Stand Up And Say, 'i Forgive. I'm Finished With It.'

Don't Let The Incidents Which Take Place In Life Bring You Low. And Certainly Don't Whine. You Can Be Brought Low, That's Ok, But Don't Be Reduced By Them. Just Say, 'that's Life.'

A Woman In Harmony With Her Spirit Is Like A River Flowing.

Mostly, What I Have Learned So Far About Aging, Despite The Creakiness Of One's Bones And Cragginess Of One's Once-silken Skin, Is This: Do It. By All Means, Do It.

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

But Still, Like Air, I'll Rise

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

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

A Leader Sees Greatness In Other People. He Nor She Can Be Much Of A Leader If All She Sees Is Herself.

Beneath The Skin, Beyond The Differing Features And Into The True Heart Of Being, Fundamentally, We Are More Alike, My Friend, Than We Are Unalike.

I've Learned That You Can Tell A Lot About A Person By The Way (s)he Handles These Three Things: A Rainy Day, Lost Luggage, And Tangled Christmas Tree Lights.

Something Made Greater By Ourselves And In Turn That Makes Us Greater.

I'm Convinced Of This: Good Done Anywhere Is Good Done Everywhere. For A Change, Start By Speaking To People Rather Than Walking By Them Like They're Stones That Don't Matter. As Long As You're Breathing, It's Never Too Late To Do Some Good.

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.

My Mother Had Said Me, "all Right, You've Been Raised, So Don't Let Anybody Else Raise You. You Know The Difference Between Right And Wrong. Do Right. And Remember - You Can Always Come Home." And She Continued To Liberate Me Until She Died. On The Night She Died, I Went To The Hospital. I Told My Mom, "let Me Tell You About Yourself. You Deserved A Great Daughter, And You Got One. And You Liberated Me To Be One. So If It's Time For You To Go, You May Have Done Everything God Brought You Here To Do."

Success Is Loving Life And Daring To Live It.

Writing And Cookery Are Just Two Different Means Of Communication.

I Believe That One Can Never Leave Home. I Believe That One Carries The Shadows, The Dreams, The Fears And The Dragons Of Home Under One's Skin, At The Extreme Corners Of One's Eyes And Possibly In The Gristle Of The Earlobe.

I Would Ask Every Man And Every Woman Who's Had The Blessing Of Having Children, 'would You Deny Your Son Or Your Daughter The Ecstasy Of Finding Someone To Love?' To Love Someone Takes A Lot Of Courage. So How Much More Is One Challenged When The Love Is Of The Same Sex And The Laws Say, 'i Forbid You From Loving This Person'?

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.

Creativity Or Talent, Like Electricity, Is Something I Don’t Understand But Something I’m Able To Harness And Use. While Electricity Remains A Mystery, I Know I Can Plug Into It And Light Up A Cathedral Or A Synagogue Or An Operating Room And Use It To Help Save A Life. Or I Can Use It To Electrocute Someone. Like Electricity, Creativity Makes No Judgment. I Can Use It Productively Or Destructively. The Important Thing Is To Use It. You Can’t Use Up Creativity. The More You Use It, The More You Have.

My Doctor Told Me That I Really Should Lose Some Weight. "you're Mildly Obese," He Said. And I Thought, "well, Who Couldn't Afford To Lose 20 Or 30 Pounds?" He Said, "well, A Person In Your Category." I Said, "what Is That Category, Doctor?" He Said, "well, You're What I Call Upwardly Middle Aged." And I Said, "i Forgive You For Everything."

Courage, I Don't Think Anybody Is Born With Courage. I Think You May Be Born With A Flair To Braggadocio, You Know. That's Not Courage.

He Was A Simple Man Who Had No Inferiority Complex About His Lack Of Education, And Even More Amazing No Superiority Complex Because He Had Succeeded Despite That Lack.

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 Became The Kind Of Parent My Mother Was To Me.

Poetry Helps My Soul Escape Its Encasement.

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.

One Of The Wonderful Things About Oprah: She Teaches You To Keep On Stepping.

Wonderful Things

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.

Pretty Women Wonder Where My Secret Lies. I'm Not Cute Or Built To Suit A Fashion Model's Size But When I Start To Tell Them, They Think I'm Telling Lies. I Say, It's In The Reach Of My Arms The Span Of My Hips, The Stride Of My Step, The Curl Of My Lips. I'm A Woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal Woman, That's Me.

Most Plain Girls Are Virtuous Because Of The Scarcity Of Opportunity To Be Otherwise.

In The Fifties, You Have Your Beauty As A Treat. I Thought That Until I Hit The Sixties.in Your Sixties, Life Decides To Reward You With Certain Kinds Of Profound Appreciation, So That People Name Their Children And Schools And Libraries After You! And You Still Have Your Sexuality And Your Sensuality. If You Want Your Sexuality, You Still Have It.

Light And Shadow Are Opposite Sides Of The Same Coin. We Can Illuminate Our Paths Or Darken Our Way. It Is A Matter Of Choice.

The Ship Of My Life May Or May Not Be Sailing On Calm And Amiable Seas. The Challenging Days Of My Existence May Or May Not Be Bright And Promising. Stormy Or Sunny Days, Glorious Or Lonely Nights, I Maintain An Attitude Of Gratitude. If I Insist On Being Pessimistic, There Is Always Tomorrow. Today I Am Blessed.

The Nice Thing About Hope Is That You Can Give It To Someone Else, Someone Who Needs It Even More Than You Do, And You Will Find You Have Not Given Yours Away At All.

Our Stories Come From Our Lives And From The Playwright's Pen, The Mind Of The Actor, The Roles We Create, The Artistry Of Life Itself And The Quest For Peace.

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.

I Have A Son, Who Is My Heart. A Wonderful Young Man, Daring And Loving And Strong And Kind.

I Believe That People Want The Scent Of Love, More Than Anything Else. And I Don't Mean Sentimentality, I Don't Mean Mush. I Mean That Idea, That Human Beings Are More Alike Than We Are Different. And That Means That I Can Love You. I Don't Mean Support You In Bad Things You Do, That I Can Understand Because You're A Human Being.

Let Us Live So We Do Not Regret Years Of Inertia And Ignorance, So When We Die We Can Say All Of Our Energy Was Dedicated To The Noble Liberation Of The Human Mind And Spirit, Beginning With My Own.

To Take A Few Nouns, And A Few Pronouns, And Adverbs And Adjectives, And Put Them Together, Ball Them Up, And Throw Them Against The Wall To Make Them Bounce. That's What Norman Mailer Did. That's What James Baldwin Did, And Joan Didion Did, And That's What I Do - That's What I Mean To Do.

I Love The Melodies In The Old Testament, How Preachers Highlight Them When They Read From The Scripture. But I Was Influenced Forever By The New Testament. I Love The Beatitudes, Informing Us That The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth.

I Never Have Written Every Day. When I'm Writing A Book, I Write Monday Through Friday. I Always Try To Take Saturday And Pretend To Have Some Sanity.

I'm Convinced That I'm A Child Of God. That's Wonderful, Exhilarating, Liberating, Full Of Promise. But The Burden Which Goes Along With That Is, I'm Convinced That Everybody Is A Child Of God. . . . I Weep A Lot. I Thank God I Laugh A Lot, Too. The Main Thing In One's Own Private World Is To Try To Laugh As Much As You Cry.

Because Of Technological Breakthroughs, The Society Will Need Fewer And Fewer Unskilled Laborers.

...we May Encounter Many Defeats, But We Must Not Be Defeated. That Sounds Goody Two-shoes, I Know, But I Believe That A Diamond Is The Result Of Extreme Pressure And Time. Less Time Is Crystal. Less Than That Is Coal. Less Than That Is Fossilized Leaves. Less Than That It's Just Plain Dirt. In All My Work, In The Movies I Write, The Lyrics The Poetry, The Prose, The Essays, I Am Saying That We May Encounter Many Defeats - Maybe It's Imperative That We Encounter The Defeats - But We Are Much Stronger Than We Appear To Be And Maybe Much Better Than We Allow Ourselves To Be.

I'm Young As Morning And Fresh As Dew. Everybody Loves Me And So Do You.

Believe In Yourself

But A Caged Bird Stands On The Grave Of Dreams.

Ask For What You Want And Be Prepared To Get It!

Had I Known That The Heart Breaks Slowly, Dismantling Itself Into Unrecognizable Plots Of Misery... Had I Known Yet I Would Have Loved You, Your Brash And Insolent Beauty, Your Heavy Comedic Face And Knowledge Of Sweet Delights, But From A Distance I Would Have Left You Whole And Wholly For The Delectation Of Those Who Wanted More And Cared Less.

If We Don't Plant The Right Things, We Will Reap The Wrong Things. It Goes Without Saying. And You Don't Have To Be, You Know, A Brilliant Biochemist And You Don't Have To Have An Iq Of 150. Just Common Sense Tells You To Be Kind, Ninny, Fool. Be Kind.

You Build Your 'courage Muscle' Daily, By Being Courageous In Little Things. Just Do Right.

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

Each Of Us Has That Right, That Possibility, To Invent Ourselves Daily. If A Person Does Not Invent Herself, She Will Be Invented. So, To Be Bodacious Enough To Invent Ourselves Is Wise.

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.

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.

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

Take A Month And Show Some Kindness For The Folks Who Thought That Blindness Was An Illness That Affected Eyes Alone.

The Music Was My Friend, My Lover, My Family.

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

All Of Childhood's Unanswered Questions Must Finally Be Passed Back To The Town And Answered There. Heroes And Bogey Men, Values And Dislikes, Are First Encountered And Labeled In That Early Environment. In Later Years They Change Faces, Places And Maybe Races, Tactics, Intensities And Goals, But Beneath Those Penetrable Masks They Wear Forever The Stocking-capped Faces Of Childhood.

We Cannot Change The Past, But We Can Change Our Attitude Toward It. Uproot Guilt And Plant Forgiveness. Tear Out Arrogance And Seed Humility. Exchange Love For Hate - Thereby, Making The Present Comfortable And The Future Promising.

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.

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

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

You Are The Sum Total Of Everything You've Seen, Heard, Eaten, Smelled, Been Told, Forgot- It's All Right There.

Lord Keep Your Arm Around My Shoulder And Your Hand Over My Mouth.

The Most Noble Cause Known To Man Is The Liberation Of The Human Mind And Spirit.

I Read The Bible To Myself; I'll Take Any Translation, Any Edition, And Read It Aloud, Just To Hear The Language, Hear The Rhythm, And Remind Myself How Beautiful English Is.

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.

Everybody In The World Wants The Same Thing...to Be Needed...a Job That He/she Can Do Well...to Love Somebody...everybody...there's No Mystery.

Open Your Eyes To The Beauty Around You, Open Your Mind To The Wonders Of Life, Open Your Heart To Those Who Love You, And Always Be True To Yourself.

First Best Is Falling In Love. Second Best Is Being In Love. Least Best Is Falling Out Of Love. But Any Of It Is Better Than Never Having Been In Love.

Falling In Love

You May Encounter Many Defeats, But You Must Not Be Defeated. In Fact, The Encountering May Be The Very Experience Which Creates The Vitality And The Power To Endure.

I Think The More We Know The Better We Are. I Mean Not Just Facts. The More We Know About Each Other, The Closer We Are To Learn Something About Our Selves.

A Woman Needs Someone She Can Trust, Someone Who Laughs When She Laughs, But Who Has Different Ideas So She Can Learn From And Teach To Them. She Needs Someone Who Will Stand Up With Her And Encourage Her To Be A Woman-not Just A Female. See Where You Are, Admit What You Know, And What You Need, And Search For A Sister Friend.

I Am A Woman Phenomenally, Phenomenal Woman That Is Your Grandmother, That Is Your Mother, That Is Your Sister, That Is You And That Is Me.

Phenomenal Woman

I Am Always Talking About The Human Condition And About American Society In Particular: What It Is Like To Be Human, What Makes Us Weep, What Makes Us Fall And Stumble And Somehow Rise And Go On From Darkness Into Darkness And That Darkness Carpeted.

Growing Up, I Decided, A Long Time Ago, I Wouldn't Accept Any Manmade Differences Between Human Beings, Differences Made At Somebody Else's Insistence Or Someone Else's Whim Or Convenience.

Exchange Love For Hate...thereby, Making The Present Comfortable And The Future Promising.

Inspirational Forgiveness

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Melissa Joan Hart

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