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If You Must Look Back, Do So Forgivingly. If You Will Look Forward, Do So Prayerfully. But The Wisest Course Would Be To Be Present In The Present Gratefully.

-Maya Angelou

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If You Must Look

Maya Angelou

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If You Must Look Back, Do So Forgivingly. If You Will Look Forward, Do So Prayerfully. But The Wisest Course Would Be To Be Present In The Present Gratefully.

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Bringing The Gifts That My Ancestors Gave, I Am The Dream And The Hope Of The Slave. I Rise. I Rise. I Rise.

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

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

Will To Survive

Surviving Is Important. Thriving Is Elegant.

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

Poetry Puts Starch In Your Backbone So You Can Stand, So You Can Compose Your Life.

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.

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.

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Inspirational Friendship

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.

It Is The Worst Thing You Can Do, Women, Is Whine, .. I Mean The Worst. Don't Complain, Protest.

Never, Never Let A Person Know You're Frightened. And A Group Of Them ... Absolutely Never. Fear Brings Out The Worst In Everybody.

In An Unfamiliar Culture, It Is Wise To Offer No Innovations, No Suggestions, Or Lessons.

A Societies Needs Determines Their Ethics

It's In The Click Of My Heels, The Bend Of My Hair, The Palm Of My Hand, The Need Of My Care, 'cause I'm A Woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal Woman, That's Me.

We Must Infuse Our Lives With Art. Our National Leaders Must Be Informed That We Want Them To Use Our Taxes To Support Street Theatre In Order To Oppose Street Gangs. We Should Have A Well-supported Regional Theatre In Order To Oppose Regionalism And.

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.

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.

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.

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 Can Practice Any Virtue Erratically, But Nothing Consistently Without Courage.

We Are Not Our Brother’s Keeper We Are Our Brother And We Are Our Sister. We Must Look Past Complexion And See Community.

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.

Yet It Is Only Love Which Sets Us Free.

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

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

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'.

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.

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.

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

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.

I Think When We Don't Know What To Do It's Wise To Do Nothing. Sit Down Quietly; Quiet Our Hearts And Minds And Breathe Deeply.

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.

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.

Continue To Plant A Kiss Of Concern On The Cheek Of The Sick And The Aged And Infirm And Count That Actions As Natural And To Be Expected.

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.

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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.

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.

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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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I'm A Positive Thinker And Actor. I Look At A Glass; A Negative Person Sees The Glass And Says: Too Bad It's Half Empty... I Look At The Same Glass And Say: Hallelujah!! It's Half Full!!!

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

I Believe That Every Person Is Born With Talent.

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No One Comes From The Earth Like Grass. We Come Like Trees. We All Have Roots.

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'?

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.

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

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.'

All Great Artists Draw From The Same Resource: The Human Heart, Which Tells Us That We Are All More Alike Than We Are Unalike.

Bitterness Is Like Cancer. It Eats Upon The Host. But Anger Is Like Fire. It Burns It All Clean.

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

Poetry Is Music Written For The Human Voice.

Now, After Years Of Observation And Enough Courage To Admit What I Have Observed, I Try To Plant Peace If I Do Not Want Discord; To Plant Loyalty And Honesty If I Want To Avoid Betrayal And Lies.

Seek Patience And Passion In Equal Amounts. Patience Alone Will Not Build The Temple. Passion Alone Will Destroy Its Walls.

A Bizarre Sensation Pervades A Relationship Of Pretense. No Truth Seems True.

To Grow Up Is To Stop Putting Blame On Parents.

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.'

I Make Writing As Much A Part Of My Life As I Do Eating Or Listening To Music.

I Believe Everything Is Energy. I Believe That The Meal You Serve Yourself, You Prepare, Is Energy. And If You Serve It To Your Family, It's Your Gift Of Energy To Them.

Every Person Needs To Take One Day Away. A Day In Which One Consciously Separates The Past From The Future.

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.

You Can Never Be Great At Anything Unless You Love It.

You Rose Into My Life Like A Promised Sunrise, Brightening My Days With The Light In Your Eyes. I've Never Been So Strong. Now I'm Where I Belong.

Through The Centuries, We Faced Down Death By Daring To Hope.

Each Of Us Has The Power And Responsibility To Become A Rainbow In The Clouds.

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.

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

If You Have Only One Smile In You Give It To The People You Love.

I Wasn't A Pretty Girl. I Was Six Feet Tall At 15, You Know.

It May In Fact Be Utterly Impossible To Be Successful Without Helping Others To Become Successful.

Women Been Gittin' Pregnant Ever Since Eve Ate That Apple.

Stand Up Straight And Realize Who You Are, That You Tower Over Your Circumstances. You Are A Child Of God. Stand Up Straight.

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

In Diversity There Is Beauty And There Is Strength.

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.

When We Decide To Be Happy We Accept The Responsibility To Bring Happiness To Someone Else. Some Decide That Happiness And Glee Are The Same Thing, They Are Not. When We Choose Happiness We Accept The Responsibility To Lighten The Load Of Someone Else And To Be A Light On The Path To Another Who May Be Walking In Darkness.

I Know That When I Pray, Something Wonderful Happens. Not Just To The Person Or Persons For Whom I'm Praying, But Also Something Wonderful Happens To Me. I'm Grateful That I'm Heard.

I Believe Everything Is Energy. I Believe That The Meal You Serve Yourself, You Prepare, Is Energy. And If You Serve It To Your Family, It's Your Gift Of Energy To Them.

It's Amazing. I Can Do Anything. And Do It Well. Any Good Thing, I Can Do It. That's Why I Am Who I Am, Yes, Because God Loves Me And I'm Amazed At It. I'm Grateful For It.

I Get Up In The Morning, And I'm Reluctant To Turn On The Television.

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.

That's The Biggest Gift I Can Give Anybody: 'wake Up, Be Aware Of Who You Are, What You're Doing And What You Can Do To Prevent Yourself From Becoming Ill.'

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 Do Not Believe That The Accident Of Birth Makes People Sisters And Brothers. It Makes Them Siblings. Gives Them Mutuality Of Parentage. Sisterhood And Brotherhood Are Conditions People Have To Work At. It's A Serious Matter. You Compromise, You Give, You Take, You Stand Firm, And You're Relentless...and It Is An Investment. 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.

We Need Much Less Than We Think We Need.

Try To Live Your Life In A Way That You Will Not Regret Years Of Useless Virtue And Inertia And Timidity.

Everybody Is Worth Everything.

As Soon As Healing Takes Place, Go Out And Heal Somebody Else.

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

Having Courage Does Not Mean We Are Unafraid.

The Writer Has To Take The Most Used, Most Familiar Objects - Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, Adverbs - Ball Them Together And Make Them Bounce, Turn Them A Certain Way And Make People Get Into A Romantic Mood; And Another Way, Into A Bellicose Mood. I'm Most Happy To Be A Writer.

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.'

Everybody Is Worth Everything.

Food Served Is Always More Than Just Food Served. That Is To Say, It Is More Than Just Fuel For The Body. Depending Upon Who Has Prepared The Food And Who Has Served It And With What Spirit, It Can Uplift The - And Around The World, In Every Culture, Food Is Used To Flirt, To Be Coy, A Raise In The Employment Or To Search For Employment. It Can Bring Warring Factions Together.

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.

Listen To Some Good Poetry. You See? It Keeps Us From Thinking We Are Only What Our Blatant Appetites Describe Us As.

If We Live Long Enough, We May Even Get Over War. I Imagine A Time When Somebody Will Mention The Word War And Everyone In The Room Will Start To Laugh. And What Do You Mean War?

To Be Human Is To Be Challenged To Be More Divine. Not Even To Try To Meet Such A Challenge Is The Biggest Defeat Imaginable.

Information Helps You To See That You're Not Alone. That There's Somebody In Mississippi And Somebody In Tokyo Who Have Wept, Who've All Longed And Lost, Who've All Been Happy. So The Library Helps You To See, Not Only That You Are Not Alone, But That You're Not Really Any Different From Everyone Else.

Alone, All Alone Nobody, But Nobody Can Make It Out Here Alone.

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.

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.

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

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

I Have Risked Everything To Tell The Truth. Tell The Truth

Telling The Truth

One Isn't Necessarily Born With Courage, But One Is Born With Potential. Without Courage, We Cannot Practice Any Other Virtue With Consistency. We Can't Be Kind, True, Merciful, Generous, Or Honest.

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

I Note The Obvious Differences Between Each Sort And Type, But We Are More Alike, My Friends, Than We Are Unalike.

You Can Never Be Great At Anything Unless You Love It.

We Are More Alike Than Unalike.

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.

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'.

No Matter What Happens, Or How Bad It Seems Today, Life Does Go On, And It Will Be Better Tomorrow.

You Don't Want Modesty, You Want Humility. Humility Comes From Inside Out. It Says Someone Was Here Before Me And I'm Here Because I've Been Paid For. I Have Something To Do And I Will Do That Because I'm Paying For Someone Else Who Has Yet To Come.

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

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.

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.

It's True. I Can Do Anything And Do It Well Because God Loves Me. It Still Humbles Me.

Each Person Deserves A Day Away In Which No Problems Are Confronted, No Solutions Searched For.

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."

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

Women Been Gittin' Pregnant Ever Since Eve Ate That Apple.

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

I Do Not Trust People Who Don't Love Themselves And Yet Tell Me, 'i Love You.' There Is An African Saying Which Is: Be Careful When A Naked Person Offers You A Shirt.

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!

Let Me Tell So Much Truth. I Want To Tell The Truth In My Work. The Truth Will Lead Me To All.

Telling The Truth

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.

No One Can Take The Place Of A Friend, No One.

I Agreed A Long Time Ago, I Would Not Live At Any Cost. If I Am Moved Or Forced Away From What I Think Is The Right Thing, I Will Not Do It.

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

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.

I Write Because I Am A Black Woman, Listening Attentively To Her People.

I Always Knew From That Moment, From The Time I Found Myself At Home In That Little Segregated Library In The South, All The Way Up Until I Walked Up The Steps Of The New York City Library, I Always Felt, In Any Town, If I Can Get To A Library, I'll Be Okay. It Really Helped Me As A Child, And That Never Left Me. So I Have A Special Place For Every Library, In My Heart Of Hearts.

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.

During Bad Circumstances, Which Is The Human Inheritance, You Must Decide Not To Be Reduced. You Have Your Humanity, And You Must Not Allow Anything To Reduce That. We Are Obliged To Know We Are Global Citizens. Disasters Remind Us We Are World Citizens, Whether We Like It Or Not.

I Write Because I Am A Black Woman, Listening Attentively To Her People.

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

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

You Should Be Angry. You Must Not Be Bitter. Bitterness Is Like Cancer. It Eats Upon The Host. It Doesn't Do Anything To The Object Of Its Displeasure. So Use That Anger. You Write It. You Paint It. You Dance It. You March It. You Vote It. You Do Everything About It. You Talk It. Never Stop Talking It.

Timidity Makes A Person Modest. It Makes Him Or Her Say, "i'm Not Worthy Of Being Written Up In The Record Of Deeds In Heaven Or On Earth." Timidity Keeps People From Their Good. They Are Afraid To Say, "yes, I Deserve It."

Don't Bring Negative To My Door.

You Want Me To Do Something... Tell Me I Can't Do It.

Motivational Workout

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. Each Of Us Has A Few Minutes A Day Or A Few Hours A Week Which We Could Donate To An Old Folks Home Or A Children's Hospital Ward. The Elderly Whose Pillows We Plump Or Whose Water Pitchers We Refill May Or May Not Thank Us For Our Gift, But The Gift Is Upholding The Foundation Of The Universe.

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

Each One Of Us Has Lived Through Some Devastation, Some Loneliness, Some Weather Superstorm Or Spiritual Superstorm, When We Look At Each Other We Must Say, I Understand. I Understand How You Feel Because I Have Been There Myself. We Must Support Each Other And Empathize With Each Other Because Each Of Us Is More Alike Than We Are Unalike.

Have A Purpose To Your Life: Purpose Does Not Mean Having A Job...you Can Have A Job And Still Be Unfulfilled.

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

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.

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

You Rose Into My Life Like A Promised Sunrise, Brightening My Days With The Light In Your Eyes. I've Never Been So Strong. Now I'm Where I Belong.

Try To Be All You Can Be To Be The Best Human Being You Can Be. Try To Be That In Your Church, In Your Temple. Try To Be That In Your Classroom. Do It Because It Is Right To Do.

Those Of Us Who Submitted Or Surrendered Our Ideas And Dreams And Identities To The 'leaders' Must Take Back Our Rights, Our Identities, Our Responsibilities.

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

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.

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 Difficult Thing In The World, It Seems To Me, Is To Realize That I Am A Child Of God; To Keep That In My Mind All The Time.

We Need To Haunt The House Of History And Listen Anew To The Ancestors' Wisdom.

Words Of Wisdom

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.

If You're For The Right Thing, You Do It Without Thinking.

You May Not Get What You Paid For, But You Will Pay For What You Get.

Stormy Or Sunny Days, Glorious Or Lonely Nights, I Maintain An Attitude Of Gratitude.

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.'

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

When You Know Better You Do Better.

In Stamps The Segregation Was So Complete That Most Black Children Didn't Really, Absolutely Know What Whites Looked Like.

Achievement Brings Its Own Anticlimax.

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.

The First Thing I Do In The Morning When I Awaken Is Say, 'thank You, Lord!' I'm Grateful To Be Alive, And I'm Going To Try To Tell The Truth As Well As I Know And Tell It As Eloquently As I Can So That People Can Hear It.

Anger Is Like Fire. It Burns All Clean.

Then The Question Began To Live Under My Blankets: How Did Lesbianism Begin? What Were The Symptoms? The Public Library Gave Information On The Finished Lesbian--and That Woefully Sketchy--but On The Growth Of A Lesbian, There Was Nothing. I Did Discover That The Difference Between Hermaphrodites And Lesbians Was That Hermaphrodites Were "born That Way." It Was Impossible To Determine Whether Lesbians Budded Gradually, Or Burst Into Being With A Suddenness That Dismayed Them As Much As It Repelled Society.

A Wise Woman Wishes To Be No One's Enemy; A Wise Woman Refuses To Be Anyone's Victim.

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

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. Few, If Any, Survive Their Teens. Most Surrender To The Vague But Murderous Pressure Of Adult Conformity. It Becomes Easier To Die And Avoid Conflict Than To Maintain A Constant Battle With The Superior Forces Of Maturity.

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.

Have Enough Courage To Love.

Courage To Love

My Greatest Blessing Has Been The Birth Of My Son. My Next Greatest Blessing Has Been My Ability To Turn People Into Children Of Mine.

If Growing Up Is Painful For The Southern Black Girl, Being Aware Of Her Displacement Is The Rust On The Razor That Threatens The Throat. It Is An Unnecessary Insult.

Everyone Has At Least One Story, And Each Of Us Is Funny If We Admit It. You Have To Admit You're The Funniest Person You've Ever Heard Of.

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 Believe Talent Is Like Electricity. We Don't Understand Electricity. We Use It. You Can Plug Into It And Light Up A Lamp, Keep A Heart Pump Going, Light A Cathedral, Or You Can Electrocute A Person With It. Electricity Will Do All That. It Makes No Judgment. I Think Talent Is Like That. I Believe Every Person Is Born With Talent.

If You Happen To Fall In Love With Someone In Another Race, It's More Difficult, Because You Have To Translate Yourself.

Falling In Love

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.

In A World So Rife With Vulgarity, With Brutality And Violence, Love Exists. I’m Grateful To Know That It Exists.

I Have Need Of A Friend. There Is One And Only One Who Will Give The Air From His Failing Lungs For My Body's Mend. And That One Is My Love.

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.

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.

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