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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.

-Maya Angelou

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Sisterhood Means If You

Maya Angelou

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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.

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Knowing Nothing

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Y’all Dropped The Ball And You Should Be Shamed.

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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.

At The End Of The Day People Won't Remember What You Said Or Did, They Will Remember How You Made Them Feel.

The End Of The Day

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

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I Am Grateful To Be A Woman. I Must Have Done Something Great In Another Life.

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Tell The Truth And Not The Facts.

Telling The Truth

Cooking Certain Dishes, Like Roast Pork, Reminds Me Of My Mother.

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Give Yourself Time Just To Be With Yourself.

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Love Is Many Things. It Is Varied. One Thing Love Is Not, Is Unsure.

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.

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

All Great Achievements Require Time.

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.

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

Whining Is Not Only Graceless, But It Can Be Dangerous. It Can Alert A Brute That A Victim Is In The Neighborhood.

Nothing Hurts More Than Realizing They Meant Everything To You, But You Meant Nothing To Them.

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

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.

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

The Quality Of Strength Lined With Tenderness Is An Unbeatable Combination, As Are Intelligence And Necessity When Unblunted By Formal Education.

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.

Education Helps One Case Cease Being Intimidated By Strange Situations.

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

African American

People Will Never Forget How You Made Them Feel.

The Dread Of Futility Has Been My Life-long Plague.

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.

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 Am Always Talking About The Human Condition And About American Society In Particular: What It Is Like To Be Human, What Makes Us Weep, What Makes Us Fall And Stumble And Somehow Rise And Go On From Darkness Into Darkness And That Darkness Carpeted.

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.

Remember, People Will Judge You By Your Actions Not Your Intentions. You May Have A Heart Of Gold But So Does A Hard-boiled Egg.

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

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.

I Not Only Have The Right To Stand Up For Myself, But I Have The Responsibility. I Can't Ask Somebody Else To Stand Up For Me If I Won't Stand Up For Myself. And Once You Stand Up For Yourself, You'd Be Surprised That People Say, "can I Be Of Help?".

Whining Is Just Unbecoming.

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.

Take A Month And Show Some Kindness For The Folks Who Thought That Blindness Was An Illness That Affected Eyes Alone.

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

A Rose By Any Other Name May Smell As Sweet, But A Woman Called By A Devaluing Name Will Only Be Weakened By The Misnomer.

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

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 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.

Nobody Can Enjoy Unless We All Enjoy, Truly Enjoy.

Nothing Succeeds Like Success. Get A Little Success, And Then Just Get A Little More.

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

If The Door Has Been Opened And I've Been Invited, Or If I'm Not Invited And I Somehow Know I'm Supposed To Go In There, I Put Myself Together And Go In, Praying All The While. I Try To Learn Something Before I Go In. I Try To Show Some Respect Of The Place I'm Going Into.

The Poetry You Read Has Been Written For You, Each Of You - Black, White, Hispanic, Man, Woman, Gay, Straight.

Without Courage You Can't Practice Any Other Virtue Consistently.

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

Everybody In The World Wants The Same Thing...to Be Needed...a Job That He/she Can Do Well...to Love Somebody...everybody...there's No Mystery.

Soft You Day, Be Velvet Soft, My True Love Approaches, Look You Bright, You Dusty Sun, Array Your Golden Coaches. Soft You Wind, Be Soft As Silk My True Love Is Speaking. Hold You Birds, Your Silver Throats, His Golden Voice I'm Seeking. Come You Death, In Haste, Do Come My Shroud Of Black Be Weaving, Quiet My Heart, Be Deathly Quiet, My True Love Is Leaving.

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

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.

Be Certain That You Do Not Die Without Having Done Something Wonderful For Humanity.

Inspirational Life

If You Have A Person Enslaved, The First Thing You Must Do Is To Convince Yourself That The Person Is Subhuman. And Won't Mind The Enslavement. The Second Thing You Must Do Is Convince Your Allies That The Person Is Subhuman So That You Have Some Support. But The Third And The Unkindest Cut Of All Is To Convince That Person That He, She, Is Not Quite A First Class Citizen.

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.

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 Think Clinton, After Getting Into Office And Into Washington, Was Shocked At Being Bludgeoned. So He Spent Time Trying To Be All Things To All People - One Way Guaranteed Not To Be Successful Or Respected In A Lion's Den. You Can't Just Play Around With All Those Big Cats - You've Got To Take Somebody On.

We Need Much Less Than We Think We Need.

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

Hatred Is The Ballast Of The Rock Which Lies Upon Our Necks And Underfoot.

The Poetry You Read Has Been Written For You, Each Of You - Black, White, Hispanic, Man, Woman, Gay, Straight.

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

I Do Not Think Of Myself As Unusually Creative. I Think We All Come From The Creator, Each Human Being Streaming With The Glory. So Each One Of Us Is Creative.

If You Have A Napkin, You Need Another Napkin To Receive Back All The Blessings You'll Get. And You Keep Giving. Then You Need A Towel To Receive All The Gifts. And You Continue Giving. Finally, You Need A Tablecloth. And You Continue Giving - Not Stupidly, But You Give. And When You Give, You Finally Have To Move Out And Get A Second House, And A Third House And A Fourth.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.

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.

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.

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.

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