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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.

-Maya Angelou

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I'm Sorry To Say

Maya Angelou

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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.

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

I'm Grateful To Be Of Use. I Will Not Be Misused Or Abused, But I Will Be Of Use To Anybody.

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Whenever I'm Around Some Who Is Modest, I Think, 'run Like Hell And All Of Fire.' You Don't Want Modesty, You Want Humility.

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

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Different Ideas

Home Is A Refuge Not Only From The World, But A Refuge From My Worries, My Troubles, My Concerns. I Like Beautiful Things Around Me. I Like To Be Beautiful Because It Delights My Eyes And My Soul Is Lifted Up.

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

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.

If I'm Going To A New Country, I Try To Learn Something About The Language And The Culture, So I Don't Just Go Bumbling Over Things.

We Need Much Less Than We Think We Need.

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

The Root Cause Of All The Problems We Have In The World Today Is Ignorance Of Course. But Most, Polarization.

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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.

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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.

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I Am Convinced That Courage Is The Most Important Of All The Virtues. Because Without Courage, You Cannot Practice Any Other Virtue Consistently. You Can Be Kind For A While; You Can Be Generous For A While; You Can Be Just For A While, Or Merciful For A While, Even Loving For A While. But It Is Only With Courage That You Can Be Persistently And Insistently Kind And Generous And Fair.

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I'm A Spring Leaf Trembling In Anticipation.

Hope Does Not Take Away Your Problems. It Can Lift You Above Them.

To Know And Not To Do Is In Fact Not To Know. We Need To Be Active Instruments Against Evil. We Need To Do.

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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.

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

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Words Mean More Than What Is Set Down On Paper. It Takes The Human Voice To Infuse Them With Deeper Meaning.

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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.

Therefore We Pledge To Bind Ourselves To One Another, To Embrace Our Lowliest, To Keep Company With Our Loneliest, To Educate Our Illiterate, To Feed Our Starving, To Clothe Our Ragged, To Do All Good Things, Knowing That We Are More Than Keepers Of Our Brothers And Sisters. We Are Our Brothers And Sisters

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Have Enough Courage To Love.

Courage To Love

I Love A Hebrew National Hot Dog With An Ice-cold Corona - No Lime. If The Phone Rings, I Won't Answer Until I'm Done.

If You Are Always Trying To Be Normal You Will Never Know How Amazing You Can Be.

Being A Woman Is Hard Work.

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

The Needs Of A Society Determine Its Ethics, And In The Black American Ghettos The Hero Is That Man Who Is Offered Only The Crumbs From His Country's Table But By Ingenuity And Courage Is Able To Take For Himself A Lucullan Feast. Hence The Janitor Who Lives In One Room But Sports A Robin's-egg-blue Cadillac Is Not Laughed At But Admired, And The Domestic Who Buys Forty-dollar Shoes Is Not Criticized But Is Appreciated. We Know That They Have Put To Use Their Full Mental And Physical Powers. Each Single Gain Feeds Into The Gains Of The Body Collective.

Everybody Born Comes From The Creator Trailing Wisps Of Glory.

Poetry Is Music Written For The Human Voice.

It Is Important That We Learn Humility, Which Says There Was Someone Else Before Me Who Paid For Me. My Responsibility Is To Prepare Myself So That I Can Pay For Someone Else Who Is Yet To Come.

My Heart Is So Heavy When I See The Reality Of The Indian Reservation And As An American, I Know I Am, Too, Responsible.

What We Really Have To Do Is Take A Day And Sit Down And Think. The World Is Not Going To End Or Fall Apart. Jobs Won't Be Lost. Kids Will Not Run Crazy In One Day. Lovers Won't Stop Speaking To You. Husbands And Wives Are Not Going To Disappear. Just Take That One Day And Think. Don't Read. Don't Write. No Television, No Radio, No Distractions. Sit Down And Think. . . . Go Sit In A Church, Or In The Park, Or Take A Long Walk And Think. Call It A Healing Day.

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.

One Must Know Not Just How To Accept A Gift, But With What Grace To Share It.

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?

My Mother Raised Me, And Then Freed Me.

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

In Spite Of Everything That Was Done To Me And My Race, In Spite Of The Adversity And The Bitter Moments, Again We Rise.

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.

There Is A Kind Of Strength That Is Almost Frightening In Black Women. It's As If A Steel Rod Runs Right Through The Head Down To The Feet.

Love Liberates. It Doesn't Just Hold, That's Ego. Love Liberates.

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

Precious Jewels

Faith Is The Evidence Of The Unseen.

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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.

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.

Love Recognizes No Barriers.

My Pride Had Been Starched By A Family Who Assumed Unlimited Authority In Its Own Affairs.

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.

For Africa To Me... Is More Than A Glamorous Fact. It Is A Historical Truth. No Man Can Know Where He Is Going Unless He Knows Exactly Where He Has Been And Exactly How He Arrived At His Present Place.

If We Lose Love And Self Respect For Each Other, This Is How We Finally Die.

Let Choice Whisper In Your Ear And Love Murmur In Your Heart. Be Ready. Here Comes Life.

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.

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

Hoping For The Best, Prepared For The Worst, And Unsurprised By Anything In Between.

Personal Growth

I'm Not Sure If Resilience Is Ever Achieved Alone. Experience Allows Us To Learn From Example. But If We Have Someone Who Loves Us-i Don't Mean Who Indulges Us, But Who Loves Us Enough To Be On Our Side-then It's Easier To Grow Resilience, To Grow Belief In Self, To Grow Self-esteem. And It's Self-esteem That Allows A Person To Stand Up.

This Conference ? Of, For And About Women ? Is, In Itself, A Rainbow In The Clouds. When Numerous Women Come Together And Show That They Care, Not Only For Themselves But Also For Each Other, That Is The Occasion When A Rainbow Is Shining Down On Somebody Else.

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

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.

Depending On Who I Am Talking About Or Who's Talking Through Me - If The Person Is A Kind Of Hip-hop, Or Rhythm And Blues Person, Or If The Person Is A Kind Of Old-fashion Gothic, Meaning Gothic Attitude, Then That Will Determine What Form The Poem Will Take.

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.

Don't Get Older Just To Get Wiser. If You Get Older, You Will Be Wiser, I Believe That - If You Dare. But Get Older Because It's Fun!

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

My Mother Said I Must Always Be Intolerant Of Ignorance But Understanding Of Illiteracy. That Some People, Unable To Go To School, Were More Educated And More Intelligent Than College Professors.

Prejudice Is A Burden That Confuses The Past, Threatens The Future And Renders The Present Inaccessible.

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

If God Put The Rainbows Right In The Clouds Themselves, Each One Of Us In The Direst And Dullest And Most Dreaded And Dreary Moments Can See A Possibility Of Hope ... Each One Of Us Has The Chance To Be A Rainbow In Somebody's Cloud.

Perhaps Travel Cannot Prevent Bigotry, But By Demonstrating That All Peoples Cry, Laugh, Eat, Worry, And Die, It Can Introduce The Idea That If We Try And Understand Each Other, We May Even Become Friends.

We Have It In Us To Be Splendid.

Anger Is Like Fire. It Burns All Clean.

It's A Wonderful Thing To Know That There Is Something To Know There Is Something Greater Than I Am, And That Is God Itself.

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

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.

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

Preach It, I Say Preach It.

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.

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.

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

My Heart Is So Heavy When I See The Reality Of The Indian Reservation And As An American, I Know I Am, Too, Responsible.

My Mother Is So Full Of Joy And Life. I Am Her Child. And That Is Better Than Being The Child Of Anyone Else In The World.

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

Past Present Future

Lift Up Your Eyes Upon This Day Breaking For You. Give Birth Again To The Dream. Women, Children, Men, Take It Into The Palms Of Your Hands. Mold It Into The Shape Of Your Most Private Need. Sculpt It Into The Image Of Your Most Public Self. Lift Up Your Hearts Each New Hour Holds New Chances For A New Beginning.

I Like To Go Back And Read Poems That I Wrote Fifty Years Ago, Twenty Years Ago, And Sometimes They Surprise Me - I Didn't Know I Knew That Then. Or Maybe I Didn't Know It Then, And I Know More Now.

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

If You Will Have A Person Enslaved, The First Thing You Must Do Is Convince Yourself That The Person Is Subhuman. The Second Thing You Have To Do Is Convince Your Allies So You'll Have Some Help, And The Third And Probably Unkindest Cut Of All Is To Convince That Person That He Or She Is Subhuman And Deserves It.

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

The Problem I Have With Haters Is That They See My Glory, But They Don't Know My Story.

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

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

I Answer The Heroic Question, 'death, Where Is Thy Sting?' With 'it Is In My Heart And Mind And Memories.

You Never Get Over The Fear Of Writing.

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

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.

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've Had People Explain To Me What One Of My Poems Meant, And I've Been Surprised That It Means That To Them. If A Person Can Use A Poem Of Mine To Interpret Her Life Or His Life, Good. I Can't Control That. Nor Would I Want To.

I Thought I'm Going To Die. So Why Can't I Do Everything? And What Is This Idea That I Worked All Day Yesterday, So I'm Tired Today? I've Never Believed That.i Thought, "just Suppose I Could Choreograph A Ballet." And I Did It. Suppose I Could Teach Dance At The Theater In Cleveland. And I Did It. Suppose I Could Sing For A Living - That I Could Stop These Two Jobs As A Waitress And A Salesperson.

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'?

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.

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'.

Music Was My Refuge. I Could Crawl Into The Space Between The Notes And Curl My Back To Loneliness.

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.

A Woman In Harmony With Her Spirit Is Like A River Flowing. She Goes Where She Will Without Pretense And Arrives At Her Destination Prepared To Be Herself And Only Herself

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.

My Mission In Life Is Not Merely To Survive, But To Thrive; And To Do So With Some Passion, Some Compassion, Some Humor, And Some Style

A Woman In Harmony With Her Spirit Is Like A River Flowing. She Goes Where She Will Without Pretense And Arrives At Her Destination Prepared To Be Herself And Only Herself

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