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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'.

-Maya Angelou

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I Know, That Since

Maya Angelou

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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'.

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I Thought If War Did Not Include Killing, I'd Like To See One Every Year.

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.

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We, Unaccustomed To Courage Exiles From Delight Live Coiled In Shells Of Loneliness Until Love Leaves Its High Holy Temple And Comes Into Our Sight To Liberate Us Into Life.

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Poetry Is Music Written For The Human Voice.

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You Don't Need Another Person, Place Or Thing To Make You Whole. God Already Did That. Your Job Is To Know It.

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.

When We Know Better, We Do Better.

Precious Jewel, You Glow, You Shine, Reflecting All The Good Things In The World. Just Look At Yourself.

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

Love Liberates. Love - Not Sentimentality, Not Mush - But True Love Gives You Enough Courage That You Can Say To Somebody, "don't Do That, Baby." And The Person Will Know You're Not Preaching But Teaching.

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

Laugh As Often As Possible. You Must. Because The World Will Offer You Every Reason To Weep. So As Often As Possible, You Laugh. That, I Think, Is Part Of The Great Love.

We Delight In The Beauty Of The Butterfly, But Rarely Admit The Changes It Has Gone Through To Achieve That Beauty.

Let Gratitude Be The Pillow Upon Which You Kneel To Say Your Nightly Prayer. And Let Faith Be The Bridge You Build To Overcome Evil And Welcome Good.

The Truth Is You Never Can Leave Home. You Take It With You Everywhere You Go. It's Under Your Skin. It Moves The Tongue Or Slows It, Colors The Thinking, Impedes Upon The Logic.

I Was Grateful To See President Obama's Victory Speech. I Was Over The Moon To See The Audience. There Were About 60 Percent White Voters The Other 40 Percent Were African Americans, Asian, Spanish Speaking Etc. I Wept At That Spectacle, It Told Me That The Pundits That Continue In Our Country To Try To Polarize Us, To Keep Us Apart, Are Not Succeeding. Americans Are Waking Up Not Only To The Truth, But The Truth In Each Other. Hallelujah!

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.

Living Well Is An Art That Can Be Developed.

I Have Forgiven Myself; I'll Make A Change. Once That Forgiveness Has Taken Place You Can Console Yourself With The Knowledge That A Diamond Is The Result Of Extreme Pressure. Less Pressure Is Crystal, Less Than That Is Coal, Less Than That Is Fossilized Leaves Or Plain Dirt. Pressure Can Change You Into Something Quite Precious, Quite Wonderful, Quote Beautiful And Extremely Hard.

What I Try To Do Is Write. I May Write For Two Weeks ‘the Cat Sat On The Mat, That Is That, Not A Rat,’.... And It Might Be Just The Most Boring And Awful Stuff. But I Try. 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.

Easy Reading Is Damn Hard Writing. But If It's Right, It's Easy. It's The Other Way Round, Too. If It's Slovenly Written, Then It's Hard To Read. It Doesn't Give The Reader What The Careful Writer Can Give The Reader.

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If You're Serious, You Really Understand That It's Important That You Laugh As Much As Possible And Admit That You're The Funniest Person You Ever Met. You Have To Laugh. Admit That You're Funny. Otherwise, You Die In Solemnity.

Shakespeare Must Be A Black Girl.

Each Of Us Has A Responsibility For Being Alive: One Responsibility To Creation, Of Which We Are A Part, Another To The Creator A Debt We Repay By Trying To Extend Our Areas Of Comprehension.

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.

In So Many Ways, Segregation Shaped Me, And Education Liberated Me.

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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.

Never Whine. Whining Lets A Brute Know That A Victim Is In The Neighborhood.

I Do Hope That Young Men And Women Will Start To Think For Themselves And Start To Take Responsibility For Their Own Thoughts.

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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.

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It's Very Important To Know The Neighbor Next Door And The People Down The Street And The People In Another Race.

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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.

I'm A Religious Woman. And I Feel I Have Responsibility. I Have No Modesty At All. I'm Even Afraid Of It - It's A Learned Affectation And It's Just Stuck On Me Like Decals.

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

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

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I Don't Believe An Accident Of Birth Makes People Sisters Or Brothers. It Makes Them Siblings, Gives Them Mutuality Of Parentage. Sisterhood And Brotherhood Is A Condition People Have To Work At.

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.

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'.

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

Mother Daughter

There's Racism And Sexism And Ageism And All Sorts Of Idiocies. But Bad News Is Not News. We've Had Bad News As A Species For A Long Time. We've Had Slavery And Human Sacrifice And The Holocaust And Brutalities Of Such Measure.

When We Find Someone Who Is Brave, Fun, Intelligent, And Loving, We Have To Thank The Universe.

I've Always Written. There's A Journal Which I Kept From About 9 Years Old. The Man Who Gave It To Me Lived Across The Street From The Store And Kept It When My Grandmother's Papers Were Destroyed. I'd Written Some Essays. I Loved Poetry, Still Do. But I Really, Really Loved It Then.

I Speak To The Black Experience, But I Am Always Talking About The Human Condition.

Number Of Things Happen After I Was 50. One, You Are Hopefully Secure In What You Want To Do - Which Means That You Don't Spend A Lot Of Time Chewing On Your Knuckles About Your Reason For Being Here.also, You're At Your Most Beautiful. No Woman Is Ever More Beautiful Than She Is At 50.

When We Come To It We Must Confess That We Are The Possible We Are The Miraculous, The True Wonders Of This World, That Is When, And Only When We Come To It

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

I Like Good Food. People Want A Certain Taste, But When They're Offered Something Else, They'll Overeat. If They Really Are Looking For Chicken And Someone Gives Them Pork Chops, They'll Say, "i Will Have Another." And That's Because Their Satisfaction Is Not Reached. So I Thought I Would Make Great Food, But Eat Less Of It. I Tried It And I've Taken Off Over 40 Pounds.

We Will Sometimes Have Defeats In Life But You Can Have Defeats Without Being Defeated, You Could Fail Without Being A Failure. When You See Failure And Defeats As Merely Part Of The Process To Get To When.

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

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

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

I've Learned That People Will Forget What You Said, People Will Forget What You Did, But People Will Never Forget How You Made Them Feel.

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

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

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.

I Go To A Hotel And Try To Get There By 5:30 In The Morning. I Keep A Dictionary, A Thesaurus, A Bible, A Deck Of Playing Cards, A Bottle Of Sherry, And Stacks Of Yellow Sticky Pads. I Shut Myself In For Six, Seven Hours. I Have An Arrangement With The Hotel That No One May Go In My Room. After Three Or Four Months, They Might Slip Notes Under My Door Like, "dear Ms. Angelou, Please Let Us Change The Linens. We Think They Might Be Molding." It's Probably True. I Let Them In If They Promise Not To Touch Anything Other Then The Bed.

When We Give Cheerfully And Accept Gratefully, Everyone Is Blessed.

I've Learned That Every Day You Should Reach Out And Touch Someone. People Love A Warm Hug, Or Just A Friendly Pat On The Back.

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

Poetry Gave Me Back My Voice.

Modesty Is A Learned Affectation. It's No Good. Humility Is Great, Because Humility Says, 'there Was Someone Before Me. I'm Following In Somebody's Footsteps.'

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'.

There Is A Lot Of Ignorance, And I Don't Mean Intellectual Ignorance. I Mean People Think That If You Get Something, It Will Take Away From What I Have. It's Just Ignorance.

The Sisters And Brothers That You Meet Give You The Materials Which Your Character Uses To Build Itself. It Is Said That Some People Are Born Great, Others Achieve It, Some Have It Thrust Upon Them. In Truth, The Ways In Which Your Character Is Built Have To Do With All Three Of Those. Those Around You, Those You Choose, And Those Who Choose You.

Life Offers Us Tickets To Places Which We Have Not Knowingly Asked For.

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

Remember This: When You Cross My Doorstep, You Have Already Been Raised. With What You Have Learned...you Know The Difference Between Right And Wrong. Do Right. Don't Anybody Raise You From The Way You Have Been Raised. Know You Will Have To Make Adaptations, In Love, In Relationships, In Friends, In Society, In Work, But Don't Let Anybody Change Your Mind.

Even Here In America, We Felt The Cool, Refreshing Breeze Of Freedom When Nelson Mandela Took The Seat Of Presidency In His Country Where Formerly He Was Not Even Allowed To Vote. We Were Enlarged By Tears Of Pride As We Saw Nelson Mandela's Former Prison Guards Invited, Courteously, By Him To Watch From The Front Rows His Inauguration.

If You Find It In Your Heart To Care For Somebody Else, You Will Have Succeeded.

Glory Falls Around Us As We Sob A Dirge Of Desolation On The Cross

Courage Is The Most Important Of All The Virtues, Because Without Courage You Can't Practice Any Other Virtue Consistently. You Can Practice Any Virtue Erratically, But Nothing Consistently Without Courage.

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

Every Experience Shapes Your Writing, Being Stuck In A Car On A Lonely Bridge, Or Dancing At A Prom, Being The It Girl On The Beach, All Of Those Things Influence Your Life, They Influence How You Write, And The Topics You Choose To Write About.

If You Have, Give. If You Learn, Teach.

Each Time I Write A Book, Every Time I Face That Yellow Pad, The Challenge Is So Great. I Have Written Eleven Books, But Each Time I Think, ‘uh Oh, They’re Going To Find Out Now. I’ve Run A Game On Everybody And They’re Going To Find Me Out.

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.

All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes.

It Is Imperative That Young White Men And Women Study The Black American History. It Is Imperative That Blacks And Whites Study The Asian American History.

It Is A No-fail, Incontrovertible Reality: If You Get, Give. If You Learn, Teach. You Can't Do Anything With That Except Do It.

You Dwell In Whitened Castles With Deep And Poisoned Moats And Cannot Hear The Curses Which Fill Your Children's Throats.

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.

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

Remember This: When You Cross My Doorstep, You Have Already Been Raised. With What You Have Learned...you Know The Difference Between Right And Wrong. Do Right. Don't Anybody Raise You From The Way You Have Been Raised. Know You Will Have To Make Adaptations, In Love, In Relationships, In Friends, In Society, In Work, But Don't Let Anybody Change Your Mind.

It's Still Scary Every Time I Go Back To The Past. Each Morning, My Heart Catches. When I Get There, I Remember How The Light Was, Where The Draft Was Coming From, What Odors Were In The Air. When I Write, I Get All The Weeping Out.

I Encourage Courtesy. To Accept Nothing Less Than Courtesy, And To Give Nothing Less Than Courtesy.

In Today's Climate In Our Country, Which Is Sickened With The Pollution Of Pollution, Threatened With The Prominence Of Aids, Riddled With Burgeoning Racism, Rife With Growing Huddles Of The Homeless, We Need Art And We Need Art In All Forms. We Need All Methods Of Art To Be Present, Everywhere Present, And All The Time Present.

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 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.

The Charitable Say In Effect, 'i Seem To Have More Than I Need And You Seem To Have Less Than You Need. I Would Like To Share My Excess With You.' Fine, If My Excess Is Tangible, Money Or Goods, And Fine If Not, For I Learned That To Be Charitable With Gestures And Words Can Bring Enormous Joy And Repair Injured Feelings.

The Black Female Is Assaulted In Her Tender Years By All Those Common Forces Of Nature At The Same Time She Is Caught In The Tripartite Crossfire Of Masculine Prejudice, White Illogical Hate And Black Lack Of Power.

It's So Tedious Writing Cookbooks Or Writing The Recipes Because I've Never Been Much Of A Measurer. But To Write A Book, You Have To Measure Everything.

The Children To Whom We Read Simple Stories May Or May Not Show Gratitude, But Each Boon We Give Strengthens The Pillars Of The World.

I Am The Dream And The Hope Of The Slave

African American

When We Give Cheerfully And Accept Gratefully, Everyone Is Blessed.

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

Forgiveness. It's One Of The Greatest Gifts You Can Give Yourself, To Forgive. Forgive Everybody. You Are Relieved Of Carrying That Burden Of Resentment. You Really Are Lighter. You Feel Lighter. You Just Drop That.

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.

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.

My Mother Said I Must Always Be Intolerant Of Ignorance But Understanding Of Illiteracy.

You Never Get Over The Fear Of Writing.

Words Are Things. You Must Be Careful, Careful About Calling People Out Of Their Names, Using Racial Pejoratives And Sexual Pejoratives And All That Ignorance. Don’t Do That. Some Day We’ll Be Able To Measure The Power Of Words. I Think They Are Things. They Get On The Walls. They Get In Your Wallpaper. They Get In Your Rugs, In Your Upholstery, And Your Clothes, And Finally In To You.

I've Learned That Whenever I Decide Something With An Open Heart, I Usually Make The Right Decision. I've Learned That Even When I Have Pains, I Don't Have To Be One. I've Learned That Every Day You Should Reach Out And Touch Someone. People Love A Warm Hug, Or Just A Friendly Pat On The Back. I've Learned That I Still Have A Lot To Learn.

Reduce Your Humanity Through What Jules Feiffer Called Little Murders. The Minute I Hear Someone Trying To Demean Me, I Know That That Person Means To Have My Life. And I Will Not Give It To Them. When A Person Commits These Little Murders, And Then You Catch Him Or Her At It, He Or She Might Say, "oh, I Didn't Mean It." But Make No Mistake: It Is An Assassination Attempt.

Effective Action Is Always Unjust.

Like A Pianist Runs Her Fingers Over The Keys, I'll Search My Mind For What To Say. Now, The Poem May Want You To Write It. And Then Sometimes You See A Situation And Think, 'i'd Like To Write About That.' Those Are Two Different Ways Of Being Approached By A Poem, Or Approaching A Poem.

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

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

The Needs Of A Society Determine Its Ethics.

Nature Has No Mercy At All. Nature Says, "i'm Going To Snow. If You Have On A Bikini And No Snowshoes, That's Tough. I Am Going To Snow Anyway."

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.

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

At Our Best, We're All Teachers

I Don't Believe An Accident Of Birth Makes People Sisters Or Brothers. It Makes Them Siblings, Gives Them Mutuality Of Parentage. Sisterhood And Brotherhood Is A Condition People Have To Work At.

There Is An Intimate Laughter To Be Found Only Among Friends

Inspirational Friendship

No Not Me Go Find Someone Else To Bring Down

Hatred Is The Ballast Of The Rock Which Lies Upon Our Necks And Underfoot.

The Love Of The Family, The Love Of One Person Can Heal. It Heals The Scars Left By A Larger Society. A Massive, Powerful Society.

Jealousy In Romance Is Like Salt In Food. A Little Can Enhance The Savor, But Too Much Can Spoil The Pleasure And, Under Certain Circumstances, Can Be Life-threatening.

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!

Its Not Where Your Dreams Take You, Its Where You Take Your Dreams.

I Would Say You Might Encounter Many Defeats But You Must Never Be Defeated, Ever. In Fact, It Might Even Be Necessary To Confront Defeat. It Might Be Necessary, To Get Over It, All The Way Through It, And Go On. I Would Teach Her To Laugh A Lot. Laugh A Lot At The - And The Silliest Things And Be Very, Very Serious. I'd Teach Her To Love Life, I Can Bet You That.

Don't Hesitate To Learn The Most Painful Aspects Of Our History, Understand 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.

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.

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

When We Find Someone Who Is Brave, Fun, Intelligent, And Loving, We Have To Thank The Universe.

There Were People Who Went To Sleep Last Night, Poor And Rich And White And Black, But They Will Never Wake Again. And Those Dead Folks Would Give Anything At All For Just Five Minutes Of This Weather Or Ten Minutes Of Plowing. So You Watch Yourself About Complaining. 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.

It Is Sad But True That Sometimes We Need The Tragedy To Help Us To See How Human We Are And How We Are More Alike Than We Are Different.

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.

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.

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

Tragedy, No Matter How Sad, Becomes Boring To Those Not Caught In Its Addictive Caress.

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

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