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The Autobiographer Looks At Life Through The Lens Of His Or Her Own Life And Really Uses Herself Or Himself As The Jumping-off Place To Examine The Social Mores And The Economic And Political Climates. In A Way, The Autobiography Becomes History As Well As The Story Of One Person, For It Becomes The Story Of A Family Or The Story Of The State Or Nation.

-Maya Angelou

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The Autobiographer Looks At

Maya Angelou

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The Autobiographer Looks At Life Through The Lens Of His Or Her Own Life And Really Uses Herself Or Himself As The Jumping-off Place To Examine The Social Mores And The Economic And Political Climates. In A Way, The Autobiography Becomes History As Well As The Story Of One Person, For It Becomes The Story Of A Family Or The Story Of The State Or Nation.

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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.

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

Different Ideas

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.

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

Having Courage Does Not Mean That We Are Unafraid. Having Courage And Showing Courage Mean We Face Our Fears. We Are Able To Say, 'i Have Fallen, But I Will Get Up.'

I'm Working At Trying To Be A Christian And That's Serious Business. It's Like Trying To Be A Good Jew, A Good Muslim, A Good Buddhist, A Good Shintoist, A Good Zoroastrian, A Good Friend, A Good Lover, A Good Mother, A Good Buddyit's Serious Business. It's Not Something Where You Think, Oh, I've Got It Done. I Did It All Day, Hotdiggety. The Truth Is, All Day Long You Try To Do It, Try To Be It, And Then In The Evening If You're Honest And Have A Little Courage You Look At Yourself And Say, Hmm. I Only Blew It Eighty-six Times. Not Bad.

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.

I Don't Think There's Such A Thing As Autobiographical Fiction. If I Say It Happened, It Happened, Even If Only In My Mind.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Am Grateful To Have Been Loved And To Be Loved Now And To Be Able To Love, Because That Liberates. Love Liberates. It Doesn't Just Hold - That's Ego. Love Liberates. It Doesn't Bind. Love Says, 'i Love You. I Love You If You're In China. I Love You If You're Across Town. I Love You If You're In Harlem. I Love You. I Would Like To Be Near You. I'd Like To Have Your Arms Around Me. I'd Like To Hear Your Voice In My Ear. But That's Not Possible Now, So I Love You. Go.'

There Is An Intimate Laughter To Be Found Only Among Friends

Inspirational Friendship

"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.

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.

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.

We Need Much Less Than We Think We Need.

I've Had Rainbows In My Clouds.

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

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

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.

Light And Shadow Are Opposite Sides Of The Same Coin. We Can Illuminate Our Paths Or Darken Our Way. It Is A Matter Of Choice.

I Think I Know That I Deserve Better. And So I Try For Better. I'm Never So Put Off That I Would Ever Walk Out Of A Place Not Having Tried The Best I Could.

Tragedy, No Matter How Sad, Becomes Boring To Those Not Caught In Its Addictive Caress.

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

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.

I Have A Feeling That I Make A Very Good Friend, And I'm A Good Mother, And A Good Sister, And A Good Citizen. I Am Involved In Life Itself - All Of It. And I Have A Lot Of Energy And A Lot Of Nerve.

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

Glory Falls Around Us As We Sob A Dirge Of Desolation On The Cross

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

Anger Is Like Fire. It Burns All Clean.

Living Well Is An Art That Can Be Developed.

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.

I Became The Kind Of Parent My Mother Was To Me.

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

If You Have A Song To Sing, Who Are You Not To Open Your Mouth And Sing To The World?

Tell The Truth And Not The Facts.

Telling The Truth

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.'

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

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.

Achievement Brings Its Own Anticlimax.

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.

It’s The Fire In My Eyes, And The Flash Of My Teeth, The Swing In My Waist, And The Joy In My Feet. I’m A Woman Phenomenally.

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

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.

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.

I Believe That Every Person Is Born With Talent.

I Don't Think There's Such A Thing As Autobiographical Fiction. If I Say It Happened, It Happened, Even If Only In My Mind.

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.

At Fifteen Life Had Taught Me Undeniably That Surrender, In Its Place, Was As Honorable As Resistance, Especially If One Had No Choice.

Courage - You Develop Courage By Doing Small Things Like Just As If You Wouldn't Want To Pick Up A 100-pound Weight Without Preparing Yourself.

I Believe That Every Person Is Born With Talent.

I Have Forgiven Myself; I'll Make A Change. Once That Forgiveness Has Taken Place You Can Console Yourself With The Knowledge That A Diamond Is The Result Of Extreme Pressure. Less Pressure Is Crystal, Less Than That Is Coal, Less Than That Is Fossilized Leaves Or Plain Dirt. Pressure Can Change You Into Something Quite Precious, Quite Wonderful, Quote Beautiful And Extremely Hard.

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

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

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

You Dwell In Whitened Castles With Deep And Poisoned Moats And Cannot Hear The Curses Which Fill Your Children's Throats.

Our Stories Come From Our Lives And From The Playwright's Pen, The Mind Of The Actor, The Roles We Create, The Artistry Of Life Itself And The Quest For Peace.

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.

We Need Language To Tell Us Who We Are, How We Feel, What We're Capable Of- To Explain The Pains And Glory Of Our Existence.

I'm A Feminist. I've Been A Female For A Long Time Now. It'd Be Stupid Not To Be On My Own Side.

Give Yourself Time Just To Be With Yourself.

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 Have Heard It Said That Winter, Too, Will Pass, That Spring Is A Sign That Summer Is Due At Last. See, All We Have To Do Is Hang On.

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

When My Grandmother Died, I Realized That Even If I Had Millions Of Dollars, I Couldn't Find Her Anywhere On Earth. My Next Thought Was That I Would Die. I Looked At My Life And Thought, "i'm Afraid To Die." I Concluded That Whether I Was Afraid Or Not, I Would Die. It Was One Of The Most Important Crossroads In My Life, Once I Realized That No Matter What, I Would Do This Thing, The Next Step Was To Think, "if I Am Going To Do The Most Difficult And Frightening Thing - Dying - Is It Possible That I Could Do Some Difficult And Impossible Things That Are Good?"

Impossible Things

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

Inspirational Forgiveness

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

Here On The Pulse Of This New Day You May Have The Grace To Look Up And Out And Into Your Sister's Eyes, Into Your Brother's Face, Your Country And Say Simply Very Simply With Hope Good Morning.

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 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.

I Can Be Changed By What Happens To Me. But I Refuse To Be Reduced By It.

I Know That I've Been Guided By God. I Am Obedient.

To Take A Few Nouns, And A Few Pronouns, And Adverbs And Adjectives, And Put Them Together, Ball Them Up, And Throw Them Against The Wall To Make Them Bounce. That's What Norman Mailer Did. That's What James Baldwin Did, And Joan Didion Did, And That's What I Do - That's What I Mean To Do.

A Mother's Love Liberates.

Won't It Be Wonderful When Black History And Native American History And Jewish History And All Of U.s. History Is Taught From One Book. Just U.s. History.

Native American

All Great Acheivements Require Time.

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

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

Had I Not Had My Grandmother, Who Dared To Be My Rainbow In The Clouds, I Would Have Been Just Another Sexually Abused Barefoot Black Girl On The Roads Of Arkansas.

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

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.

The Sadness Of The Women's Movement Is That They Don't Allow The Necessity Of Love. See, I Don't Personally Trust Any Revolution Where Love Is Not Allowed.

I'm Convinced Of This: Good Done Anywhere Is Good Done Everywhere. For A Change, Start By Speaking To People Rather Than Walking By Them Like They're Stones That Don't Matter. As Long As You're Breathing, It's Never Too Late To Do Some Good.

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

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 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.

My Mother Said I Must Always Be Intolerant Of Ignorance But Understanding Of Illiteracy.

Poetry Gave Me Back My Voice.

There Are Great Parents Of Small Children - They Keep Their Little Hair In Bows - But Those Parents Are Not Always Good Parents Of Young Adults. As Soon As Their Children Get Up To Some Size, It's "shut Up, Sit Down, You Talk Too Much, Keep Your Distance, I'll Send You To Europe!" My Mom Was A Terrible Parent Of Small Children But A Great Parent Of Young Adults. She'd Talk To Me As If I Had Some Sense.

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."

Perhaps Travel Cannot Prevent Bigotry, But By Demonstrating That All Peoples Cry, Laugh, Eat, Worry, And Die, It Can Introduce The Idea That If We Try And Understand Each Other, We May Even Become Friends.

It Is Important That We Learn Humility, Which Says There Was Someone Else Before Me Who Paid For Me. My Responsibility Is To Prepare Myself So That I Can Pay For Someone Else Who Is Yet To Come.

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.

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

How Important It Is For Us To Recognize And Celebrate Our Heroes And She-roes!

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.

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.

Don't Face The Day Until You've Faced God.

When You Know You Are Of Worth, You Don't Have To Raise Your Voice, You Don't Have To Become Rude, You Don't Have To Become Vulgar; You Just Are. And You Are Like The Sky Is, As The Air Is, The Same Way Water Is Wet. It Doesn't Have To Protest.

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.

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.

For A Person Who Grew Up In The '30s And '40s In The Segregated South, With So Many Doors Closed Without Explanation To Me, Libraries And Books Said, 'here I Am, Read Me.' Over Time I Have Learned I Am At My Best Around Books.

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.

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.

Like A Pianist Runs Her Fingers Over The Keys, I'll Search My Mind For What To Say. Now, The Poem May Want You To Write It. And Then Sometimes You See A Situation And Think, 'i'd Like To Write About That.' Those Are Two Different Ways Of Being Approached By A Poem, Or Approaching A Poem.

There's A World Of Difference Between Truth And Facts. Facts Can Obscure The Truth.

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

Will To Survive

There's Something Beautiful About The Fact That Obama Was Not Just Elected, But Elected Decisively Across Racial, And Socio-economic And Cultural Groups And That We All Celebrated In His Win.

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 Am The Dream And The Hope Of The Slave

African American

We Write For The Same Reason That We Walk, Talk, Climb Mountains Or Swim The Oceans — Because We Can. We Have Some Impulse Within Us That Makes Us Want To Explain Ourselves To Other Human Beings. That’s Why We Paint, That’s Why We Dare To Love Someone- Because We Have The Impulse To Explain Who We Are. Not Just How Tall We Are, Or Thin… But Who We Are Internally… Perhaps Even Spiritually. There’s Something, Which Impels Us To Show Our Inner-souls. The More Courageous We Are, The More We Succeed In Explaining What We Know.

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

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.

One Must Learn To Care For Oneself First, So That One Can Then Dare To Care For Someone Else.

The Public Library Building, In My View, Is Just A Little Lower Than The Church, The Cathedral, The Temple, The Synagogue And The Mosque. Within Those Walls And Along Those Stacks, I Have Found Security And Assurance.

No One Has Ever Become Poor From Giving.

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

I Know, That Since Life Is Our Most Precious Gift, And As Far As We Can Be Absolutely Certain, It's Given To Us To Live But Once, Let Us So Live We Will Not Regret Years Of Useless Virtue, And Inertia, And Timidity, And Ignorance, And In Our Last Moments We Can Say: 'all My Life, All My Conscious Energies, Have Been Dedicated To The Most Noble Cause In The World, The Liberation Of The Human Mind And Spirit - Beginning With My Own'.

I 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.

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.

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

I Made The Decision To Quit Show Business. Give Up The Skintight Dresses And Manicured Smiles. The False Concern Over Sentimental Lyrics. I Would Never Again Work To Make People Smile Inanely And Would Take On The Responsibility Of Making Them Think.

The Most Important Thing Is To Dare.

Important Things

Most Plain Girls Are Virtuous Because Of The Scarcity Of Opportunity To Be Otherwise.

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

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.

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.'

Poetry And Music Are The Best At The Highest Level Of The Human Mind. Out Of Poetry, Out Of Their Need For Poetry, Human Beings Have Developed The Idea Of God. And So When We Sing, When We Dance, When We Speak Poetry We Are Speaking Out Of God's Mouth, Each Other Out Of The Music From God's Heart.

Everything Costs And Costs The Earth.

God Puts Rainbows In The Clouds So That Each Of Us - In The Dreariest And Most Dreaded Moments - Can See A Possibility Of Hope.

Chasing Rainbows

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.

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

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.

Shelter Network's Programs And Services Are A Rainbow In The Clouds For Homeless Children And Adults.

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.

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.

Courage Allows The Successful Woman To Fail - And To Learn Powerful Lessons From The Failure - So That In The End, She Didn't Fail At All.

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."

Money And Power Can Liberate Only If They Are Used To Do So. They Can Imprison And Inhibit More Finally Than Barred Windows And Iron Chains.

Determine To Live Life With Flair And Laughter.

When You Know Better You Do Better.

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 Can See In The Acorn The Oak Tree. I See The Growth, The Rebuilding, The Restoring. I See That Is The American Psyche. There Is So Much We Can Draw Understanding From. One Of The Lessons Is The Development Of Courage. Because Without Courage, You Can't Practice Any Of The Other Virtues Consistently.

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."

If We Don't Plant The Right Things, We Will Reap The Wrong Things. It Goes Without Saying. And You Don't Have To Be, You Know, A Brilliant Biochemist And You Don't Have To Have An Iq Of 150. Just Common Sense Tells You To Be Kind, Ninny, Fool. Be Kind.

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

In All The World, There Is No Heart For Me Like Yours. In All The World, There Is No Love For You Like Mine.

You Don't Have To Tell Everything You Know, But Let What You Do Say Be The Truth As You Understand It.

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

Won't It Be Wonderful When Black History And Native American History And Jewish History And All Of U.s. History Is Taught From One Book. Just U.s. History.

Native American

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

The Truth Is You Never Can Leave Home. You Take It With You Everywhere You Go. It's Under Your Skin. It Moves The Tongue Or Slows It, Colors The Thinking, Impedes Upon The Logic.

I Want All My Senses Engaged. Let Me Absorb The World's Variety And Uniqueness.

Intelligence Always Had A Pornographic Influence On Me.

If A Human Being Dreams A Great Dream, Dares To Love Somebody; If A Human Being Dares To Be Martin King, Or Mahatma Gandhi, Or Mother Theresa, Or Malcolm X; If A Human Being Dares To Be Bigger Than The Condition Into Which She Or He Was Born-it Means So Can You. And So You Can Try To Stretch, Stretch, Stretch Yourself So You Can Internalize, 'homo Sum, Humani Nil A Me Alienum Puto. I Am A Human Being, Nothing Human Can Be Alien To Me.' That's One Thing I'm Learning.

To Those Who Have Given Up On Love: I Say, "trust Life A Little Bit.

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.

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

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

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 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.

It’s The Fire In My Eyes, And The Flash Of My Teeth, The Swing In My Waist, And The Joy In My Feet. I’m A Woman Phenomenally.

Sometimes All You Need In Love Is To Make Each Other Happy, To Make Each Other Laugh. So Long As You Can Still Do That Ten Years Down The Line Then I Think You're Gold. Never Let The Laughter Slip From Your Relationship.

I Might Have It At Six-fifteen A.m. Just As Soon As I Get In, But Usually It's About Eleven O'clock When I'll Have A Glass Of Sherry.

One Isn't Born With Courage. One Develops It By Doing Small Courageous Things.

I Wouldn't Trade Anything For My Story Now.

The Best Comfort Food Will Always Be Greens, Cornbread, And Fried Chicken.

Strong Women- Precious Jewels All- Their Humanness Is Evident In Their Accessibility. We Are Able To Enter Into The Spirit Of These Women And Rejoice In Their Warmth And Courage.

The Fact That The Adult American Negro Female Emerges A Formidable Character Is Often Met With Amazement, Distaste And Even Belligerance. It Is Seldom Accepted As An Inevitable Outcome Of The Struggle Won By Survivors, And Deserves Respect If Not Enthusiastic Acceptance.

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.

Mother's Life Flowed Radiant. Flourescent-tipped Waves On Incoming Tides.

The Ache For Home Lives In All Of Us, The Safe Place Where We Can Go As We Are And Not Be Questioned.

If I Could Give You One Thought, It Would Be To Lift Someone Up. Lift A Stranger Up--lift Her Up. I Would Ask You, Mother And Father, Brother And Sister, Lovers, Mother And Daughter, Father And Son, Lift Someone. The Very Idea Of Lifting Someone Up Will Lift You, As Well.

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

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 We Ought To Give Ourselves More Time. We Should Be More Patient With Ourselves And With Each Other.

I've Had People Explain To Me What One Of My Poems Meant, And I've Been Surprised That It Means That To Them. If A Person Can Use A Poem Of Mine To Interpret Her Life Or His Life, Good. I Can't Control That. Nor Would I Want To.

The Main Thing In One's Own Private World Is To Try To Laugh As Much As You Cry.

The Autobiographer Looks At Life Through The Lens Of His Or Her Own Life And Really Uses Herself Or Himself As The Jumping-off Place To Examine The Social Mores And The Economic And Political Climates. In A Way, The Autobiography Becomes History As Well As The Story Of One Person, For It Becomes The Story Of A Family Or The Story Of The State Or Nation.

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

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.

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

I Pray For Humility Because That Comes From Inside Out. And What Humility Does For One, Is It Reminds Us That There Are People Before Me. I Have Already Been Paid For. And What I Need To Do Is Prepare Myself So That I Can Pay For Someone Else Who Has Yet To Come, But Who May Be Here And Needs Me.

You Never Get Over The Fear Of Writing.

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.'

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

I Am Capable Of What Every Other Human Is Capable Of. This Is One Of The Great Lessons Of War And Life.

The Woman Who Survives Intact And Happy Must Be At Once Tender And Tough.

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.

The Caged Bird Sings With A Fearful Trill, Of Things Unknown, But Longed For Still, And His Tune Is Heard On The Distant Hill, For The Caged Bird Sings Of Freedom.

Making A Decision To Write Was A Lot Like Deciding To Jump Into A Frozen Lake.

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

Strictly Speaking, One Cannot Legislate Love, But What One Can Do Is Legislate Fairness And Justice. If Legislation Does Not Prohibit Our Living Side By Side, Sooner Or Later Your Child Will Fall On The Pavement And I'll Be The One To Pick Her Up. Or One Of My Children Will Not Be Able To Get Into The House And You'll Have To Say, "stop Here Until Your Mom Comes Here." Legislation Affords Us The Chance To See If We Might Love Each Other.

We Are Missing Michael. But We Do Know We Had Him, And We Are The World.

The Thorn From The Bush One Has Planted, Nourished And Pruned Pricks More Deeply And Draws More Blood.

I Read The Bible To Myself; I'll Take Any Translation, Any Edition, And Read It Aloud, Just To Hear The Language, Hear The Rhythm, And Remind Myself How Beautiful English Is.

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

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