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My Great Blessing Is My Son, But I Have Daughters. I Have White Ones And Black Ones And Fat Ones And Thin Ones And Pretty Ones And Plain. I Have Gay Ones And Straight. I Have Daughters. I Have Asian Ones, I Have Jewish Ones, I Have Muslim Ones.

-Maya Angelou

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My Great Blessing Is

Maya Angelou

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My Great Blessing Is My Son, But I Have Daughters. I Have White Ones And Black Ones And Fat Ones And Thin Ones And Pretty Ones And Plain. I Have Gay Ones And Straight. I Have Daughters. I Have Asian Ones, I Have Jewish Ones, I Have Muslim Ones.

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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."

If I Wanted To Write, I Had To Be Willing To Develop A Kind Of Concentration Found Mostly In People Awaiting Execution. I Had To Learn Technique And Surrender My Ignorance.

Education Is A Process That Goes On 'til Death. The Moment You See Someone Who Knows She Has Found The One True Way, And Can Call All The Others False, Then You Know You're In The Company Of An Ignoramus.

Do The Best You Can Until You Know Better. Then When You Know Better, Do Better.

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. Now I Pray For Humility Because That Comes From Inside Out.

I Believe That Quality Level Is Determined Primarily By The Actual Design Of The Product Itself, Not By Quality Control In The Production Process.

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

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.

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.

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'm Here, And I Do My Best To Be Completely Centered At The Place I'm At, Then I Go Forward To The Next Place.

The Human Heart Is So Delicate And Sensitive That It Always Needs Some Tangible Encouragement To Prevent It From Faltering In Its Labour.

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

The Truth Will Lead Me To All.

Telling The Truth

By No Amount Of Agile Exercising Of A Wistful Imagination Could My Mother Have Been Called Lenient. Generous She Was; Indulgent Never. Kind, Yes, Permissive, Never. In Her World, People She Accepted Paddled Their Own Canoes, Pulled Their Own Weight, Put Their Own Shoulders To Their Own Plows And Pushed Like Hell.

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.

While I Know Myself As A Creation Of God, I Am Also Obligated To Realize And Remember That Everyone Else And Everything Else Are Also God's Creation.

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

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

Saying Thank You

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

When Members Of A Society Wish To Secure That Society's Rich Heritage They Cherish Their Arts And Respect Their Artists. The Esteem With Which We Regard The Multiple Cultures Offered In Our Country Enhances Our Possibilities For Healthy Survival And Continued Social Development.

Each Child Belongs To All Of Us And They Will Bring Us A Tomorrow In Direct Relation To The Responsibility We Have Shown To Them.

You Can't Use Up Creativity. The More You Use, The More You Have.

I Am The Dream And The Hope Of The Slave

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

Believe In Yourself

Live Life As If It Were Created Just For You.

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

There Is No Place Where God Is Not.

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.

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

Inspirational Forgiveness

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

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

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.

But A Caged Bird Stands On The Grave Of Dreams.

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.

People Don't Always Remember What You Say Or Even What You Do, But They Always Remember How You Make Them Feel.

My People Had Used Music To Soothe Slavery's Torment Or To Propitiate God, Or To Describe The Sweetness Of Love And The Distress Of Lovelessness, But I Knew No Race Could Sing And Dance Its Way To Freedom.

Preach It, I Say Preach It.

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

Life Is Pure Adventure, And The Sooner We Realize That, The Quicker We Will Be Able To Treat Life As Art.

It's Wonderful That Whenever Patsy Cline's Name Is Mentioned, People's Voices Fall And They Become Right Sentimental. And, Rightly So.

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

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.

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.

We Need Much Less Than We Think We Need.

I Will Write On The Pages Of History What I Want Them To Say. I Will Be Myself. I Will Speak My Own Name.

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.

My Entire Stay There [high School] Might Have Been Time Lost If It Hadn't Been For The Unique Personality Of A Brilliant Teacher. Miss Kirwin Was That Rare Educator Who Was In Love With Information. I Will Always Believe That Her Love Of Teaching Came Not So Much From Her Liking For Students But From Her Desire To Make Sure That Some Of The Things She Knew Would Find Repositories So That They Could Be Shared Again.

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.

The Future Is Plump With Promise.

I'm A Spring Leaf Trembling In Anticipation.

I Have Great Respect For The Past. If You Don't Know Where You've Come From, You Don't Know Where You're Going. I Have Respect For The Past, But I'm A Person Of The Moment. I'm Here, And I Do My Best To Be Completely Centered At The Place I'm At, Then I Go Forward To The Next Place.

Find A Beautiful Piece Of Art. If You Fall In Love With Van Gogh Or Matisse Or John Oliver Killens, Or If You Fall Love With The Music Of Coltrane, The Music Of Aretha Franklin, Or The Music Of Chopin - Find Some Beautiful Art And Admire It, And Realize That That Was Created By Human Beings Just Like You, No More Human, No Less.

Falling In Love

Freedom Is Never Free.

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.

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

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 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.

The Truth Is Very Important. No Matter How Negative It Is, It Is Imperative That You Learn The Truth, Not Necessarily The Facts. I Mean, That, That Can Come, But Facts Can Stand In Front Of The Truth And Almost Obscure The Truth. It Is Imperative That Students Learn The Truth Of Our History.

When Members Of A Society Wish To Secure That Society's Rich Heritage They Cherish Their Arts And Respect Their Artists. The Esteem With Which We Regard The Multiple Cultures Offered In Our Country Enhances Our Possibilities For Healthy Survival And Continued Social Development.

At One Time, You Could Sit On The Rue De La Paix In Paris Or At The Habima Theater In Tel Aviv Or In Medina And You Could See A Person Come In, Black, White, It Didn't Matter. You Said, 'that's An American' Because There's A Readiness To Smile And To Talk To People.

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.

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

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

Each Of Us Needs To Withdraw From The Cares Which Will Not Withdraw From Us. We Need Hours Of Aimless Wandering Or Spates Of Time Sitting On Park Benches, Observing The Mysterious World Of Ants And The Canopy Of Treetops.

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.

In A Magazine, One Can Get - From Cover To Cover - 15 To 20 Different Ideas About Life And How To Live It.

Different Ideas

My Mother Raised Me, And Then Freed Me.

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

There Are Some Nights When Sleep Plays Coy, Aloof And Disdainful. And All The Wiles That I Employ To Win Its Service To My Side Are Useless As Wounded Pride, And Much More Painful.

Yet It Is Only Love Which Sets Us Free.

If I'm Here, I'll Be Trying To Be A Better Human Being, A Better Writer, A Better Friend And A Better Beloved.

Hope Is Born Again In The Faces Of Children.

The Most Important Thing I Can Tell You About Aging Is This: If You Really Feel That You Want To Have An Off-the-shoulder Blouse And Some Big Beads And Thong Sandals And A Dirndl Skirt And A Magnolia In Your Hair, Do It. Even If You're Wrinkled.

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

A Great Soul Serves Everyone All The Time. A Great Soul Never Dies. It Brings Us Together Again And Again.

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

Without Willing It, I Had Gone From Being Ignorant Of Being Ignorant To Being Aware Of Being Aware. And The Worst Part Of My Awareness Was That I Didn't Know What I Was Aware Of. I Knew I Knew Very Little, But I Was Certain That The Things I Had Yet To Learn Wouldn't Be Taught To Me At George Washington High School.

Spirit Is An Invisible Force Made Visible In All Life.

It Is Only Out Of Ignorance That People Are Cruel, Because They Really Don't Think It Will Come Back.

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.

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

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

Original Thinking Migrates Each Day In Search Of Nourishment.

The Most Called-upon Prerequisite Of A Friend Is An Accessible Ear.

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.

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

When I'm Writing, I Am Trying To Find Out Who I Am, Who We Are, What We're Capable Of, How We Feel, How We Lose And Stand Up, And Go On From Darkness Into Darkness.

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

The Idea Is To Write It So That People Hear It And It Slides Through The Brain And Goes Straight To The Heart.

Poetry Gave Me Back My Voice.

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

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

African American

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.

You Can't Really Know Where You Are Going Until You Know Where You Have Been.

Where You Are Going

I'm A Spring Leaf Trembling In Anticipation.

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

Life Is A Gift, And I Try To Respond With Grace And Courtesy.

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

To Make A Difference Is Not A Matter Of Accident...people Choose To Make A Difference.

Making A Difference

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.

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

Live Life As If It Were Created Just For You.

Never Make Someone A Priority When All You Are To Them Is An Option.

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

Life Is Going To Give You Just What You Put In It. Put Your Whole Heart In Everything You Do, And Pray, Then You Can Wait.

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

Today, The First & Last Of Every Tree/ Speaks To Humankind. Come To Me, Here Beside The River.

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.

The Trouble For The Thief Is Not How To Steal The Chief’s Bugle, But Where To Blow It.

Until Blacks And Whites See Each Other As Brother And Sister, We Will Not Have Parity. It's Very Clear.

The Truth Is Very Important. No Matter How Negative It Is, It Is Imperative That You Learn The Truth, Not Necessarily The Facts. I Mean, That, That Can Come, But Facts Can Stand In Front Of The Truth And Almost Obscure The Truth. It Is Imperative That Students Learn The Truth Of Our History.

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.

My Grandmother Told Me That Every Good Thing I Do Helps Some Human Being In The World. I Believed Her 50 Years Ago And Still Do.

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

All Great Acheivements Require Time.

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

We Have It In Us To Be Splendid.

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 Respect Myself And Insist Upon It From Everybody. And Because I Do It, I Then Respect Everybody, Too.

African American

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

Martin Luther King Was A Human Being With A Brilliant Mind, A Powerful Heart, And Insight, And Courage And Also With A Sense Of Humor. So He Was Accessible.

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.

Let The Brain Go To Work, Let It Meet The Heart And You Will Be Able To Forgive.

You Never Get Over The Fear Of Writing.

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

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

In All My Work, I Try To Say - 'you May Be Given A Load Of Sour Lemons, Why Not Try To Make A Dozen Lemon Meringue Pies?'

We Spend Precious Hours Fearing The Inevitable. It Would Be Wise To Use That Time Adoring Our Families, Cherishing Our Friends And Living Our Lives.

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.

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.

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.

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

We Are Only As Blind As We Want To Be.

Don't Trust People Who Don't Laugh. I Don't.

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.

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

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.'

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

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

Be Wary When A Naked Person Offers You His Shirt

The Thing To Do, It Seems To Me, Is To Prepare Yourself So You Can Be A Rainbow In Somebody Else's Cloud. Somebody Who May Not Look Like You. May Not Call God The Same Name You Call God - If They Call God At All. I May Not Dance Your Dances Or Speak Your Language. But Be A Blessing To Somebody. That's What I Think.

Oh, The Holiness Of Being The Injured Party.

Most People Don't Grow Up. Most People Age. They Find Parking Spaces, Honor Their Credit Cards, Get Married, Have Children, And Call That Maturity. What That Is, Is Aging.

Fighting For One's Freedom, Struggling Towards Being Free, Is Like Struggling To Be A Poet Or A Good Christian Or A Good Jew Or A Good Muslim Or Good Zen Buddhist. You Work All Day Long And Achieve Some Kind Of Level Of Success By Nightfall, Go To Sleep And Wake Up The Next Morning With The Job Still To Be Done. So You Start All Over Again.

I Want To Thank You, Lord, For Life And All That's In It. Thank You For The Day And For The Hour, And The Minute.

Does My Sexiness Upset You? Does It Come As A Surprise That I Dance Like I've Got Diamonds At The Meeting Of My Thighs?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

You May Not Control All The Events That Happen To You, But You Can Decide Not To Be Reduced By Them. Try To Be A Rainbow In Someone Else's Cloud. Do Not Complain. Make Every Effort To Change Things You Do Not Like. If You Cannot Make A Change, Change The Way You Have Been Thinking. You Might Find A New Solution.

Politicians Must Set Their Aims For The High Ground And According To Our Various Leanings, Democratic, Republican, Independent, We Will Follow. Politicians Must Be Told If They Continue To Sink Into The Mud Of Obscenity, They Will Proceed Alone.

Each Time A Dancer Moves Devoutly Or A Composer Faithfully Searches The Silence For The Veiled Melodies, Eternity Is Engaged.

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.

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

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

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

Tell The Truth And Not The Facts.

Telling The Truth

Living Well Is An Art That Can Be Developed.

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 Don't Know How Much Longer I'll Be Around. I'll Probably Be Writing When The Lord Says, 'maya, Maya Angelou, It's Time.'

My Wish For You Is That You Continue. Continue To Be Who And How You Are, To Astonish A Mean World With Your Acts Of Kindness.

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.

Happiness Is A Chance To Talk To A Friend, To Hear Good Music, To Have A Good Glass Of Wine. Happiness Is A Chance To Be Myself And To Find People With Whom I Agree Or Who I Don't Agree But I Can Learn Something.

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.

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

I've Learned That You Can Tell A Lot About A Person By The Way He/she Handles These Three Things: A Rainy Day, Lost Luggage And Tangled Christmas Tree Lights. I've Learned That Making A 'living' Is Not The Same Thing As 'making A Life'. I've Learned That Whenever I Decide Something With An Open Heart, I Usually Make The Right Decision. I've Learned That You Shouldn't Go Through Life With A Catcher's Mitt On Both Hands; You Need To Be Able To Throw Some Things Back.

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

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

And One Of My Absolute Favorite Quotes Of All-time, One That I've Adopted As One Of My Greatest Life Mottos: Life Loves To Be Taken By The Lapel And Told: "i'm With You Kid. Let's Go."

When Teachers Or People In Authority Put Me Down Or In One Way Or Another Tried To Make Me Feel Less Than Equal To What They Thought I Should Be - My Mother Was On My Side. It Was Amazing.

We Spend Precious Hours Fearing The Inevitable. It Would Be Wise To Use That Time Adoring Our Families, Cherishing Our Friends And Living Our Lives.

I Find It Interesting That The Meanest Life, The Poorest Existence, Is Attributed To God's Will, But As Human Beings Become More Affluent, As Their Living Standard And Style Begin To Ascend The Material Scale, God Descends The Scale Of Responsibility At Commensurate Speed.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

When You Learn, Teach, When You Get, Give.

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.

If A Person - Any Human Being - Is Told Often Enough, "you Are Nothing. You Are Nothing. You Account For Nothing. You Count For Nothing. You Are Less Than A Human Being. I Have No Visibility Of You", The Person Finally Begins To Believe It.

We Need To Remember That We Are All Created Creative And Can Invent New Scenarios As Frequently As They Are Needed.

I Want To Write So Well That A Person Is 30 Or 40 Pages In A Book Of Mine ... Before She Realizes She's Reading.

If I Have A Monument In This World, It Is My Son.

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 A Person - Any Human Being - Is Told Often Enough, "you Are Nothing. You Are Nothing. You Account For Nothing. You Count For Nothing. You Are Less Than A Human Being. I Have No Visibility Of You", The Person Finally Begins To Believe It.

I Don't Trust Any Revolution Where Love Is Not Allowed.

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

A Friend May Be Waiting Behind A Stranger's Face.

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

Love Costs All We Are And Will Ever Be. Yet It Is Only Love Which Sets Us Free. A Brave And Startling Truth.

I Think A Hero Is Any Person Really Intent On Making This A Better Place For All People.

If Our Children Are To Approve Of Themselves, They Must See That We Approve Of Ourselves.

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