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

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Because Of Our Routines We Forget That Life Is An Ongoing Adventure.

What Is A Fear Of Living? It's Being Preeminently Afraid Of Dying. It Is Not Doing What You Came Here To Do, Out Of Timidity And Spinelessness. The Antidote Is To Take Full Responsibility For Yourself - For The Time You Take Up And The Space You Occupy. If You Don't Know What You're Here To Do, Then Just Do Some Good.

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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.

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When It Looks Like The Sun Isn't Going To Shine Any More, God Puts A Rainbow In The Clouds. Each One Of Us Has The Possibility, The Responsibility, The Probability To Be The Rainbow In The Clouds.

This Is What I Am Learning, At 82 Years Old: The Main Thing Is To Be In Love With The Search For Truth.

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

You Never Get Over The Fear Of Writing.

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

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

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.

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

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When I Look Back, I Am So Impressed Again With The Life-giving Power Of Literature.

We Grow Despite The Horror That We Feed Upon Our Own Tomorrow. We Grow.

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.

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The Real Difficulty Is To Overcome How You Think About Yourself. If We Don't Have That We Never Grow, We Never Learn, And Sure As Hell We Should Never Teach.

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Dr. [martin Luther] King Was A Human Being. He Had A Sense Of Humor Which Was Wonderful.

Just As Hope Rings Through Laughter, It Can Also Shine Through Tears.

Anger Is Like Fire. It Burns All Clean.

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

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.'

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.

If I Insist On Being Pessimistic, There Is Always Tomorrow. Today I Am Blessed.

On Saturday Afternoons When All The Things Are Done In The House And There's No Real Work To Be Done, I Play Bach And Chopin And Turn It Up Real Loudly And Get A Good Bottle Of Chardonnay And Sit Out On My Deck And Look Out At The Garden.

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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.

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.

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I, With Millions Of Other Americans, Have The Same Dream Martin Luther King Jr. Had; When I Wake Up I Wish Some Of The Things I Dreamt Would Be True. I Wish That Little Black And White Boys And Girls Would Hold Hands Without Being Shocked At Their Nearness To Each Other And Say In A Natural Way, "we Have Overcome.

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

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

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

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I Had To Trust Life And Believe That Life Loved The Person Who Dared To Live It.

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The Plague Of Racism Is Insidious, Entering Into Our Minds As Smoothly And Quietly And Invisibly As Floating Airborne Microbes Enter Into Our Bodies To Find Lifelong Purchase In Our Bloodstreams.

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.

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

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

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

When We Decide To Be Happy We Accept The Responsibility To Bring Happiness To Someone Else.

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Hate, It Has Caused A Lot Of Problems In The World, But Has Not Solved One Yet.

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You Can't Forgive Without Loving. And I Don't Mean Sentimentality. I Don't Mean Mush. I Mean Having Enough Courage To Stand Up And Say, 'i Forgive. I'm Finished With It.'

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

A Joyful Spirit Is Evidence Of A Grateful Heart.

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

Rainbows Are People Whose Lives Are Bright, Shining Examples For Others.

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If Men Are God's Gift To Women, Then God Must Really Love Gag Gifts.

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.

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

Black People Comprehend The South. We Understand Its Weight. It Has Rested On Our Backs... I Knew That My Heart Would Break If Ever I Put My Foot Down On That Soil, Moist, Still, With Old Hurts. I Had To Face The Fear/loathing At Its Source Or It Would Consume Me Whole.

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

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

Freedom Is Never Free.

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

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

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

Nothing Will Work Unless You Do.

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.

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

Human Beings Are More Alike Than Unalike, And What Is True Anywhere Is True Everywhere, Yet I Encourage Travel To As Many Destinations As Possible For The Sake Of Education As Well As Pleasure.

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

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.

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

That Knowledge Humbles Me, Melts My Bones, Closes My Ears, And Makes My Teeth Rock Loosely In Their Gums. And It Also Liberates Me. I Am A Big Bird Winging Over High Mountains, Down Into Serene Valleys. I Am Ripples Of Waves On Silver Seas. I'm A Spring Leaf Trembling In Anticipation.

The Real Difficulty Is To Overcome How You Think About Yourself.

Life Loves The Person Who Dares To Live It.

The Black Kids, The Poor White Kids, Spanish-speaking Kids, And Asian Kids In The Us - In The Face Of Everything To The Contrary, They Still Bop And Bump, Shout And Go To School Somehow. Their Optimism Gives Me Hope.

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

In Diversity There Is Beauty And There Is Strength.

Though We Are Many, Each Of Us Is Achingly Alone, Piercingly Alone. Only When We Confess Our Confusion Can We Remember That He Was A Gift To Us And We Did Have Him. He Came To Us From The Creator, Trailing Creativity In Abundance. Despite The Anguish, His Life Was Sheathed In Mother Love, Family Love, And Survived And Did More Than That. He Thrived With Passion And Compassion, Humor And Style. We Had Him Whether We Know Who He Was Or Did Not Know, He Was Ours And We Were His.

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?

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

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

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

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.'

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.

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

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.

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

It Is This Belief In A Power Larger Than Myself And Other Than Myself Which Allows Me To Venture Into The Unknown And Even The Unknowable.

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.

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

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.

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 Think All Poems Are Commissioned. They Just Come To Me Without Somebody Outside Commissioning Them. The Idea Comes And I Will Live With Them 'til I Get It As Close To What I Mean. I've Never Been Totally Satisfied. I've Come Close A Few Times.

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.

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

Every Day You Should Reach Out And Touch Someone

Don't Let The Man Bring You Down.

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.

I Have A Son, Who Is My Heart. A Wonderful Young Man, Daring And Loving And Strong And Kind.

Try To Be A Rainbow In Someone's Cloud.

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.

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

You May Encounter Many Defeats, But You Must Not Be Defeated. Please Remember That Your Difficulties Do Not Define You. They Simply Strengthen Your Ability To Overcome.

I Think We Have Systematically And Critically Harmed Ourselves And Many Young People By Advising Them Not To Try Things.

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.

The Area Where We Are The Greatest Is The Area In Which We Inspire, Encourage And Connect With Another Human Being.

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

Believe In Yourself

A Woman Who Is Convinced That She Deserves To Accept Only The Best Challenges Herself To Give The Best. Then She Is Living Phenomenally.

I Know Something Better Is On The Road For Me.

Something Better

The Country Didn't Get That Way In A Week; We've Had Years And Years Of Getting Behind In Our Economy. So President [barack] Obama Stepped Into A Hellhole And People Wanted Him To Change It As Soon As He Came In. But He's Got His Adversaries To Deal With In The House And Senate, So It's Not Easy.

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

The Breezes Of The West African Night Were Intimate And Shy, Licking The Hair, Sweeping Through Cotton Dresses With Unseemly Intimacy, Then Disappearing Into The Utter Blackness.

The Only Way You Can Be A Mark Is If You Want Something For Nothing. If You're Greedy, You're Set Up.

I Also Wear A Hat Or A Very Tightly Pulled Head Tie When I Write. I Suppose I Hope By Doing That I Will Keep My Brains From Seeping Out Of My Scalp And Running In Great Gray Blobs Down My Neck, Into My Ears, And Over My Face.

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

Black Women Have Not Historically Stood In The Pulpit, But That Doesn't Undermine The Fact That They Built The Churches And Maintain The Pulpits.

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'.

Original Thinking Migrates Each Day In Search Of Nourishment.

Take A Day To Heal From The Lies You've Told Yourself And The Ones That Have Been Told To You.

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.

You Think You May Not Be Heard. Speak Anyway.

In A Long Meter Hymn, A Singer - They Call It 'lays Out A Line.' And Then The Whole Church Joins In In Repeating That Line. And They Form A Wall Of Harmony So Tight, You Can't Wedge A Pin Between It.

To Grow Up Is To Stop Putting Blame On Parents.

No One Has Ever Become Poor From Giving.

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

When Asked How She Knows When Her Writing Is Where She Wants It To Be: "i Know When It's The Best I Can Do. It May Not Be The Best There Is. Another Writer May Do It Much Better. But I Know When It's The Best I Can Do. I Know That One Of The Great Arts That The Writer Develops Is The Art Of Saying, 'no. No, I'm Finished. Bye.' And Leaving It Alone. I Will Not Write It Into The Ground. I Will Not Write The Life Out Of It. I Won't Do That."

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

Love Is Like A Virus. It Can Happen To Anybody At Any Time.

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

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

I Believe That One Can Never Leave Home. I Believe That One Carries The Shadows, The Dreams, The Fears And The Dragons Of Home Under One's Skin, At The Extreme Corners Of One's Eyes And Possibly In The Gristle Of The Earlobe.

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.

When You Do Nothing You Feel Overwhelmed And Powerless. But When You Get Involved You Feel The Sense Of Hope And Accomplishment That Comes From Knowing You Are Working To Make Things Better.

You May Be Pretty Or Plain, Heavy Or Thin, Gay Or Straight, Poor Or Rich. But Remember This: In An Election, Every Voice Is Equally Powerful -- Don't Underestimate Your Vote. Voting Is The Great Equalizer.

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Edward Hoagland

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