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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.

-Maya Angelou

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Number Of Things Happen

Maya Angelou

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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.

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We Are All Human; Therefore, Nothing Human Can Be Alien To Us.

You Can Ask Goodness In, Show It How Much You Like It, Make Room For It. And It Says, "oh, I Like This Place, I Think I'll Stay Here." Which Is Why People Go Into One House And Say, "i Want To Take My Shoes Off." At Another House, No Matter How Beautiful It Is, They Might Say, "hmm, I Can't Stay."

Jealousy Is Conceived Only In Insecurity And Must Be Nourished In Fear.

I Was Raped When I Was Very Young. I Told My Brother The Name Of The Person Who Had Done It. Within A Few Days The Man Was Killed. In My Child's Mind--seven And A Half Years Old--i Thought My Voice Had Killed Him. So I Stopped Talking For Five Years.

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Faith Is The Evidence Of The Unseen.

The Needs Of A Society Determine Its Ethics.

Some People Cannot See A Good Thing When It Is Right Here, Right Now. Others Can Sense A Good Thing Coming When It Is Days, Months, Or Miles Away.

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.

Indeed We Have Souls. And If A Person Is Religious, I Think It's Good, It Helps You A Bit. But If You're Not, At Least You Can Have The Sense That There Is A Condition Inside You Which Looks At The Stars With Amazement And Awe. That Listens To Water With A River Flowing, Or Water Falling In Rain And Is Lifted Up By That And Listens To A Wonderful Singer, Wonderful Musicians, Listens To Maybe Duke Ellington Or Frank Sinatra Or Listens To Odetta And Mary J. Blige. Yes, And Thinks Whoo! And Thinks, Yes, Hmm, All Right Now. My Soul Has Been Washed. I Feel Better, I Feel Stronger.

We Are All Creative, But By The Time We Are Three Of Four Years Old, Someone Has Knocked The Creativity Out Of Us. Some People Shut Up The Kids Who Start To Tell Stories. Kids Dance In Their Cribs, But Someone Will Insist They Sit Still. By The Time The Creative People Are Ten Or Twelve, They Want To Be Like Everyone Else.

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?

I Thank God That I've Lived Long Enough To See What I Have Seen, And I Pray That People Will Continue To Do Better. We Are Doing Better, It May Not Seem So, But There Was A Time When People Were Lynched In The Middle Of The Street And It Was Not Against The Law. We Are Doing Better, But We Have So Much More To Do.

Every Day Offers You 10,000 Reasons To Cry, But If You Can Find Just One Reason To Laugh Then You Will Be All Right.

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.

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

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.

When I Look Back, I Am So Impressed Again With The Life-giving Power Of Literature. If I Were A Young Person Today, Trying To Gain A Sense Of Myself In The World, I Would Do That Again By Reading, Just As I Did When I Was Young.

We May Act Sophisticated And Worldly But I Believe We Feel Safest When We Go Inside Ourselves And Find Home, A Place Where We Belong And Maybe The Only Place We Really Do.

Don't Let The Man Bring You Down.

You Forgive Yourself For Every Failure Because You Are Trying To Do The Right Thing. God Knows That And You Know It. Nobody Else May Know It.

Facts Can Obscure The Truth.

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

If You're Going To Live, Leave A Legacy. Make A Mark On The World That Can't Be Erased.

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

Where You Are Going

We Are Growing Up. We Are Growing Up! Out Of The Idiocies - The Ignorances Of Racism And Sexism And Ageism And All Those Ignorances.

Surviving Is Important. Thriving Is Elegant.

I Wrote Some Of The Worst Poetry West From The Mississippi River, But I Wrote. And I Finally Sometimes Got It Right.

No One Has Ever Become Poor From Giving.

Whatever You Want To Do, If You Want To Be Great At It, You Have To Love It And Be Able To Make Sacrifices For It.

I Would Be A Liar, A Hypocrite, Or A Fool - And I'm Not Any Of Those - To Say That I Don't Write For The Reader. I Do. But For The Reader Who Hears, Who Really Will Work At It, Going Behind What I Seem To Say. So I Write For Myself And That Reader Who Will Pay The Dues.

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?

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

Will To Survive

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.

Falling In Love

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.

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.

You Think You May Not Be Heard. Speak Anyway.

If We All Hold On To The Mistake, We Can't See Our Own Glory In The Mirror Because We Have The Mistake Between Our Faces And The Mirror; We Can't See What We're Capable Of Being. You Can Ask Forgiveness Of Others, But In The End The Real Forgiveness Is In One's Own Self.

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.

Don't Let Anybody Raise You. You've Been Raised.

Have Enough Courage To Trust Love One More Time And Always One More Time.

Troubles Are A Blessing That Force You To Change, To Believe.

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

Intelligence Is A Separate Gift, For The Benefit Of Students, So That They May Think Of Themselves As Intellectual And Not Very Intelligent, Or Intelligent And Not Very Intellectual. One Hopes, Of Course, That They Try To Bring The Two Virtues, The Two Elements, Into Their Lives At The Same Time.

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.

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.

I Know Something Better Is On The Road For Me.

Something Better

The Whites Were Really Brutishly Ignorant, Blitheringly, So They Killed People Sometimes - Just Came Into The African-american Community And Maimed People Because They Didn't Agree With God's Choice For The Colors Of The People's Skin.

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

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

I'm A Serious Aficionada Of Country Music - Reba Mcentire, Toby Keith, Montgomery Gentry. I've Even Written Some Songs. They Haven't Done Anything Of Mine Yet. But It's Only A Matter Of Time.

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.

Some Of Us Are Timid. We Think We Have Something To Lose So We Don't Try For That Next Hill.

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

I Think A Number Of The Leaders Are, Whether You Like It Or Not, In The Hip-hop Generation. And When They Understand Enough, They'll Do Wonders. I Count On Them.

I Am Serious, So I Laugh A Lot. You Need To Laugh. You Don't Laugh Enough. I Don't Trust Anyone Who Doesn't Laugh.

In All The Institutions I Try To Be Present And Accountable For All I Do And Leave Undone. I Know That Eventually I Shall Have To Be Present And Accountable N The Presence Of God. I Do Not Wish To Be Found Wanting.

A Person Is The Product Of Their Dreams. So Make Sure To Dream Great Dreams. And Then Try To Live Your Dream.

You Can't Use Up Creativity, Creative Thinking Builds On Itself And Increases The Creativity Of The Thinker...you Can't Use Up Creativity. The More You Use, The More You Have.

The Honorary Duty Of A Human Being Is To Love.

I Would Welcome A Friendship With Lynne Hinton. I Would Welcome An Invitation To Sit Down At Her Table, But Mostly I Would Welcome Her Next Book.

We All Should Know That Diversity Makes For A Rich Tapestry, And We Must Understand That All The Threads Of The Tapestry Are Equal In Value No Matter What Their Color.

When I Passed Forty I Dropped Pretense, 'cause Men Like Women Who Got Some Sense.

Achievement Brings Its Own Anticlimax.

When We Cast Our Bread Upon The Waters We Can Presume That Someone Downstream Whose Face We Will Never Know Will Benefit From Our Action, As We Who Are Downstream From Another Will Profit From The Grantor's Gift.

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

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.

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

Words Of Wisdom

Original Thinking Migrates Each Day In Search Of Nourishment.

If You Were The President Of The United States Or The Queen Of England - You Couldn't Have A Person Who Would Be More Protective Than My Mother Was For Me. Which Meant Really That I Could Dare To Do All Sorts Of Things.

We May Encounter Many Defeats, But We Must Not Be Defeated. It May Even Be Necessary To Encounter The Defeat So That We Can Know Who We Are. So That We Can See, "oh, That Happened, And I Rose. I Did Get Knocked Down Flat In Front Of The Whole World, And I Rose. I Didn't Run Away; I Rose Right Where I'd Been Knocked Down." That's How You Get To Know Yourself.

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

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

Different Ideas

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.

I Love Living. I Love That I'm Alive To Love My Age. There Are Many People Who Went To Bed Just As I Did Yesterday Evening And Didn't Wake This Morning. I Love And Feel Very Blessed That I Did. I Love, Too, That I Know A Little More Today Than I Did Yesterday, Or I Simply Know It More Profoundly.

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.

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 Like To Speak On Matters Which Matter To Human Beings, And Almost Everything Matters To Human Beings.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.

Laugh And Dare To Try To Love Somebody, Starting With Yourself. You Must Love Yourself First, Of Course, And You Must Protect Yourself So That Nobody Overrides You, Overrules You, Or Steps On You. Just Say, 'just A Minute. I'm Worth Everything, Dear.'

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

Living A Life Is Like Constructing A Building: If You Start Wrong, You'll End Wrong.

I Try To Live What I Consider A "poetic Existence." That Means I Take Responsibility For The Air I Breathe And The Space I Take Up. I Try To Be Immediate, To Be Totally Present For All My Work.

We Must Create A Climate Where People Agree That Human Beings Are More Alike Than Unalike. The Only Way To Do That Is Through Education.

I Would Be A Liar, A Hypocrite, Or A Fool - And I'm Not Any Of Those - To Say That I Don't Write For The Reader. I Do. But For The Reader Who Hears, Who Really Will Work At It, Going Behind What I Seem To Say. So I Write For Myself And That Reader Who Will Pay The Dues.

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.'

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

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

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

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

I'm Grateful To Intelligent People. That Doesn't Mean Educated. That Doesn't Mean Intellectual. I Mean Really Intelligent. What Black Old People Used To Call 'mother Wit' Means Intelligence That You Had In Your Mother's Womb. That's What You Rely On. You Know What's Right To Do.

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

I Think That That's The Wisest Thing - To Prevent Illness Before We Try To Cure Something.

If You Have Done The Best You Can Do And If You Have Gotten All You Could Extract From Something, You Have Given All You Had To Give, Then The Time Has Come When You Can Do No More Than Say Thank You And Move On.

Sometimes Guns Really Matter. Protecting Those Who Need Protection - Children, Women, Minorities In Rough Parts Of Town, Old Folks Living In Places Where Cops Aren't Nearby. Guns Are True Empowerment For The Powerless.

Creativity Or Talent, Like Electricity, Is Something I Don't Understand But Something I'm Able To Harness And Use.

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

The Truth Is, No One Of Us Can Be Free Until Everybody Is Free.

Not Everything You Do Is Going To Be A Masterpiece, But You Get Art There And You Try And Sometimes It Really Happens. The Other Times You’re Just Stretching Your Soul.

I've Never Had A Dislike For Men. I've Been Badly Treated By Some. But I've Been Loved Greatly By Some. I Married A Lot Of Them.

Prepare Yourself So That You Can Be A Rainbow In Somebody Else's Cloud.

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

People Will Never Forget How You Made Them Feel.

I Keep On Dying, Because I Love To Live

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.

Intelligence Always Had A Pornographic Influence On Me.

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

Someone Was Hurt Before You, Wronged Before You, Hungry Before You, Frightened Before You, Beaten Before You, Humiliated Before You, Raped Before You... Yet, Someone Survived... You Can Do Anything You Choose To Do.

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.

You Can't Use Up Creativity, Creative Thinking Builds On Itself And Increases The Creativity Of The Thinker...you Can't Use Up Creativity. The More You Use, The More You Have.

A Mother's Love Liberates.

I Am Convinced That Words Are Things, And We Simply Don't Have The Machinery To Measure What They Are. I Believe That Words Are Tangible Things.

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

I’m Grateful For Being Here, For Being Able To Think, For Being Able To See, For Being Able To Taste, For Appreciating Love – For Knowing That It Exists In A World So Rife With Vulgarity, With Brutality And Violence, And Yet Love Exists. I’m Grateful To Know That It Exists.

Only Equals Make Friends, Every Other Relationship Is Contrived And Off Balance.

I Am Convinced That Most People Do Not Grow Up...we Marry And Dare To Have Children And Call That Growing Up. I Think What We Do Is Mostly Grow Old. We Carry Accumulation Of Years In Our Bodies, And On Our Faces, But Generally Our Real Selves, The Children Inside, Are Innocent And Shy As Magnolias.

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

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

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.

When People See The Laughing Face, Even If They're Jealous Of It, Their Burden Is Lightened. But Do It First For Yourself. Laugh And Dare To Try To Love Somebody, Starting With Yourself.

Love Recognizes No Barriers.

I'm Considered Wise, And Sometimes I See Myself As Knowing. Most Of The Time, I See Myself As Wanting To Know. And I See Myself As A Very Interested Person. I've Never Been Bored In My Life.

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."

The Future Is Plump With Promise.

Some Think, "if I Marry This Guy Who's Two Inches Taller Than I Am And Who Has A Nice Bank Account, I Won't Die. If I Buy Six Cars, I Won't Die. If I Hate Jews, I Won't Die. If I Hate Homosexuals, I Won't Die." They Think They Will Increase Their Life By Shunting Misery Onto Somebody Else, But It's Just The Opposite.

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.'

The Honorary Duty Of A Human Being Is To Love.

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.

You Can't Get Too High For Somebody To Bring You Down.

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

African American

You Can't Get Too High For Somebody To Bring You Down.

Dare To Let Your Dreams Reach Beyond You...

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.

When I Look Back, I Am So Impressed Again With The Life-giving Power Of Literature. If I Were A Young Person Today, Trying To Gain A Sense Of Myself In The World, I Would Do That Again By Reading, Just As I Did When I Was Young.

I Do Like To Have Guns Around. I Don't Like To Carry Them. But I Like - If Somebody Is Going To Come Into My House And I Have Not Put Out The Welcome Mat, I Want To Stop Them.

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!

Just Because I Am Wheelchair-bound Doesn't Mean I Don't Get Around.

I Don't Know If I Continue, Even Today, Always Liking Myself. But What I Learned To Do Many Years Ago Was To Forgive Myself. It Is Very Important For Every Human Being To Forgive Herself Or Himself Because If You Live, You Will Make Mistakes - It Is Inevitable. But Once You Do And You See The Mistake, Then You Forgive Yourself And Say, 'well, If I'd Known Better I'd Have Done Better,' That's All.

The Subject Of The Poem Usually Dictates The Rhythm Or The Rhyme And Its Form. Sometimes, When You Finish The Poem And You Think The Poem Is Finished, The Poem Says, "you're Not Finished With Me Yet," And You Have To Go Back And Revise, And You May Have Another Poem Altogether. It Has Its Own Life To Live.

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

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

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

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.

At 50, I Began To Know Who I Was. It Was Like Waking Up To Myself.

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

African American

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.

As A Nurse, We Have The Opportunity To Heal The Heart, Mind, Soul And Body Of Our Patients, Their Families And Ourselves. They May Not Remember Your Name But They Will Never Forget The Way You Made Them Feel.

I Refuse To Allow Any Man-made Differences To Separate Me From Any Other Human Beings.

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

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

Where You Are Going

I Love A Statement By The Apostle Paul, In The Book Of Philippians In The Bible. I Think The Corinthians Had Been Writing To Paul, Telling Him That Old Men Were Chasing Young Women, Nobody Was Tithing - And All That Must Have Run Paul Crazy. He Wrote Back And Said, "if There Be Anything Of Good Report, Speak Of These Things." That's One Of My Principles.it's Another Discipline That I Encourage Myself To Employ - To, As Much As Possible, Say The Courteous Thing, And Then Be It.

Courage Is The Most Important Of All The Virtues, Without It, You Can Practice No Other.

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.

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

Don't Let The Man Bring You Down.

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.'

Anything That Works Against You Can Also Work For You Once You Understand The Principle Of Reverse.

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

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

I Find In My Poetry And Prose The Rhythms And Imagery Of The Best - I Mean, When I'm At My Best - Of The Good Southern Black Preachers. The Lyricism Of The Spirituals And The Directness Of Gospel Songs And The Mystery Of Blues Are In My Music Or In My Poetry And Prose, Or I Missed Everything.

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

Reality Has Changed Chameleonlike Before My Eyes So Many Times That I Have Learned, Or Am Learning, To Trust Almost Anything Except What Appears To Be So.

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

Success Is Liking Yourself, Liking What You Do, And Liking How You Do It.

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.

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.

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

"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.

You Have To Deal With What You Encounter. But You Must Not Be Reduced. And So A Way Not To Be Reduced Is Don't Whine! Don't Let The Incidents Which Take Place In Life Bring You Low.

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. Love Arrives And In Its Train Come Ecstasies Old Memories Of Pleasure Ancient Histories Of Pain. Yet If We Are Bold, Love Strikes Away The Chains Of Fear From Our Souls. We Are Weaned From Our Timidity In The Flush Of Love's Light We Dare Be Brave And Suddenly We See That Love Costs All We Are And Will Ever Be. Yet It Is Only Love Which Sets Us Free.

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.

The Happy Heart Runs With The River, Floats On The Air, Lifts To The Music, Soars With The Eagle, Hopes With The Prayer.

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 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.

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

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.

There Is A World Of Difference Between Facts And The Truth. You Can Have So Many Facts That You Don't Deal With The Truth. You Never Get To The Truth. You Have The Places Where, The People Who, The Times When, The Reasons Why, The Methods How - Blah Blah. And Never Get To The Human Truth. The Human Truth Is As Elusive As The Air. And As Important As The Air.

Step Off The Road. Build Yourself A Brand New Path.

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.

My Life Has Been Long, And Believing That Life Loves The Liver Of It, I Have Dared To Try Many Things, Sometimes Trembling, But Daring Still.

I Am A Very Religious Person, So It Is The Presence Of God, The Constant Unwavering, Unrelenting Presence Of God Which Continues To Help Me To Keep A Character Which I Am Proud To Show.

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.

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

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?'

There Is Nothing So Pitiful As A Young Cynic Because He Has Gone From Knowing Nothing To Believing Nothing.

Knowing Nothing

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.

Human Beings Are More Alike Than Unalike. Whether In Paris, Texas, Or Paris, France, We All Want To Have Good Jobs Where We Are Needed And Respected And Paid Just A Little More Than We Deserve. We Want Healthy Children, Safe Streets, To Be Loved And Have The Unmitigated Gall To Accept Love. If We Are Religious, We Want A Place To Perpetuate God. If Not, We Want A Good Lecture Every Once In A While. And Everyone Wants Someplace To Party On Saturday Nights.

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.

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

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.

Poetry Is Music Written For The Human Voice.

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 Are The Victims Of The World's Most Comprehensive Robbery. Life Demands A Balance. It's All Right If We Do A Little Robbing Now.

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