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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.

-Maya Angelou

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The Breezes Of The

Maya Angelou

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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.

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

Out Of The Huts Of History's Shame I Rise.

Be Wary When A Naked Person Offers You His Shirt

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

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.

To Those Who Are Given Much, Much Is Expected.

It's A Wonderful Thing To Know That There Is Something To Know There Is Something Greater Than I Am, And That Is God Itself.

I Always Felt, If I Can Get To A Library, I'll Be Ok.

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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.

Let Choice Whisper In Your Ear And Love Murmur In Your Heart. Be Ready. Here Comes Life.

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.

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I Know That I'm Not The Easiest Person To Live With. The Challenge I Put On Myself Is So Great That The Person I Live With Feels Himself Challenged. I Bring A Lot To Bear, And I Don't Know How Not To.

Give Yourself Time Just To Be With Yourself.

First Best Is Falling In Love. Second Best Is Being In Love. Least Best Is Falling Out Of Love. But Any Of It Is Better Than Never Having Been In Love.

Falling In Love

I've Learned That You Shouldn't Go Through Life With A Catcher's Mitt On Both Hands; You Need To Be Able To Throw Something Back.

There Is An Intimate Laughter To Be Found Only Among Friends

Inspirational Friendship

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

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.

The Black Female Is Assaulted In Her Tender Years By All Those Common Forces Of Nature At The Same Time She Is Caught In The Tripartite Crossfire Of Masculine Prejudice, White Illogical Hate And Black Lack Of Power.

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

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.

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.

But From A Distance. I Would Have Left You Whole And Wholly For The Delectation Of Those Who Wanted More And Cared Less.

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.

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.

The Ship Of My Life May Or May Not Be Sailing On Calm And Amiable Seas. The Challenging Days Of My Existence May Or May Not Be Bright And Promising. Stormy Or Sunny Days, Glorious Or Lonely Nights, I Maintain An Attitude Of Gratitude. If I Insist On Being Pessimistic, There Is Always Tomorrow. Today I Am Blessed.

They Who Have Health Have Hope; And They Who Have Hope, Have Everything.

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

Whenever Something Went Wrong When I Was Young - If I Had A Pimple Or If My Hair Broke - My Mom Would Say, 'sister Mine, I'm Going To Make You Some Soup.' And I Really Thought The Soup Would Make My Pimple Go Away Or My Hair Stronger.

We Can Be Better, We Can Be Wiser, We Can Be More Kind. Yes We Have To Change. We Have To Grow Up And Stop Acting Like 10 Years Old. Yes There Is Much To Do, Much To See, Much To Go Into.

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.

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.

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

Beneath The Skin, Beyond The Differing Features And Into The True Heart Of Being, Fundamentally, We Are More Alike, My Friend, Than We Are Unalike.

Putting Down On Paper What You Have To Say Is An Important Part Of Writing, But The Words And Ideas Have To Be Shaped And Cleaned, Cleaned As Severely As A Dog Cleans A Bone, Cleaned Until There's Not A Shred Of Anything Superfluous.

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.

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.

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.

I Try To See Every Day As A Celebration.

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

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

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.

You Alone Are Enough. You Have Nothing To Prove To Anybody.

I Do Not Trust People Who Don't Love Themselves And Yet Tell Me, 'i Love You.' There Is An African Saying Which Is: Be Careful When A Naked Person Offers You A Shirt.

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.

Hoping For The Best, Prepared For The Worst, And Unsurprised By Anything In Between.

Personal Growth

What We Really Have To Do Is Take A Day And Sit Down And Think. The World Is Not Going To End Or Fall Apart. Jobs Won't Be Lost. Kids Will Not Run Crazy In One Day. Lovers Won't Stop Speaking To You. Husbands And Wives Are Not Going To Disappear. Just Take That One Day And Think. Don't Read. Don't Write. No Television, No Radio, No Distractions. Sit Down And Think. . . . Go Sit In A Church, Or In The Park, Or Take A Long Walk And Think. Call It A Healing Day.

Find Something You Like, Go Into A Room, Close The Door And Read It Aloud. Read It Aloud. Everybody In The World Who Likes Dance Can See Dance, Or Hear Music, Or See Art, Or Admire Architecture - But Everybody In The World Uses Words Who Is Not A Recluse Or Mute. But The Writer Has To Take These Most Common Things, More Common Than Musical Notes Or Dance Positions, A Writer Has To Take Some Adverbs, And Verbs And Nouns And Ball Them Up Together And Make Them Bounce.

We Are More Alike Than Unalike.

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

I'm A Descendant Of Someone Bought And Sold, And Brought In 1619 In What Was To Become The United States.

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

I Like Good Food. People Want A Certain Taste, But When They're Offered Something Else, They'll Overeat. If They Really Are Looking For Chicken And Someone Gives Them Pork Chops, They'll Say, "i Will Have Another." And That's Because Their Satisfaction Is Not Reached. So I Thought I Would Make Great Food, But Eat Less Of It. I Tried It And I've Taken Off Over 40 Pounds.

I’ve Got A Magic Charm That I Keep Up My Sleeve, I Can Walk The Ocean Floor And Never Have To Breathe.

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.

When I Am Writing, I Am Trying To Find Out Who I Am, Who We Are, What We're Capable Of, How We Feel, How We Lose And Stand Up, And Go On From Darkness Into Darkness. I'm Trying For That. But I'm Also Trying For The Language. I'm Trying To See How It Can Really Sound.

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

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.

Live Life As If It Were Created Just For You.

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.

I'm Convinced Of This: Good Done Anywhere Is Good Done Everywhere.

Human Beings Love Poetry. They Don't Even Know It Sometimes... Whether They're The Songs Of Bono, Or The Songs Of Justin Bieber... They're Listening To Poetry.

Pretty Women Wonder Where My Secret Lies.

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

The White American Man Makes The White American Woman Maybe Not Superfluous But Just A Little Kind Of Decoration. Not Really Important To Turning Around The Wheels Of The State. Well The Black American Woman Has Never Been Able To Feel That Way. No Black American Man At Any Time In Our History In The United States Has Been Able To Feel That He Didn't Need That Black Woman Right Against Him, Shoulder To Shoulder-in That Cotton Field, On The Auction Block, In The Ghetto, Wherever.

Live Life As If It Were Created Just For You.

I Have Respect For The Past, But I'm A Person Of The Moment.

Every Day You Should Reach Out And Touch Someone

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 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!

Each Of Us, Famous Or Infamous, Is A Role Model For Somebody, And If We Aren't, We Should Behave As Though We Are -- Cheerful, Kind, Loving, Courteous. Because You Can Be Sure Someone Is Watching And Taking Deliberate And Diligent Notes.

If You're For The Right Thing, You Do It Without Thinking.

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

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

My Heart Is So Heavy When I See The Reality Of The Indian Reservation And As An American, I Know I Am, Too, Responsible.

Hope And Fear Cannot Occupy The Same Space. Invite One To Stay.

Mind Your Own Business

Hopes And Fears

I Will Look After You And I Will Look After Anybody You Say Needs To Be Looked After, Any Way You Say. I Am Here. I Brought My Whole Self To You. I Am Your Mother.

Anyone Of Us Can Be A Rainbow In Somebody's Clouds. I Want The University Of Cincinnati To Be A Rainbow In The Clouds. The University Of Cincinnati Is Really A Possibility Of Hope; It Is A Rainbow.

I Encourage You To Live With Life. Be Courageous, Adventurous. Give Us A Tomorrow, More Than We Deserve.

Bringing The Gifts That My Ancestors Gave, I Am The Dream And The Hope Of The Slave. I Rise. I Rise. I Rise.

To Be Angry Is Very Good. It Burns Out Things And Leaves Nutrients In The Soil. You Should Always Be Ready To Be Angry At Injustice And Cruelty.

If You Have Only One Smile In You, Give It To The People You Love. Don't Be Surly At Home, Then Go Out In The Street And Start Grinning 'good Morning' At Total Strangers.

I Believe That A Negative Statement Is Poison.i'm Convinced That The Negative Has Power. It Lives. And If You Allow It To Perch In Your House, In Your Mind, In Your Life, It Can Take You Over. So When The Rude Or Cruel Thing Is Said - The Lambasting, The Gay Bashing, The Hate - I Say, "take It All Out Of My House!" Those Negative Words Climb Into The Woodwork And Into The Furniture, And The Next Thing You Know They'll Be On My Skin.

Each Time I Write A Book, Every Time I Face That Yellow Pad, The Challenge Is So Great. I Have Written Eleven Books, But Each Time I Think, ‘uh Oh, They’re Going To Find Out Now. I’ve Run A Game On Everybody And They’re Going To Find Me Out.

Early On, I Was So Impressed With Charles Dickens. I Grew Up In The South, In A Little Village In Arkansas, And The Whites In My Town Were Really Mean, And Rude. Dickens, I Could Tell, Wouldn't Be A Man Who Would Curse Me Out And Talk To Me Rudely.

Life Loves The Liver Of It. You Must Live And Life Will Be Good To You.

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 Thought I'm Going To Die. So Why Can't I Do Everything? And What Is This Idea That I Worked All Day Yesterday, So I'm Tired Today? I've Never Believed That.i Thought, "just Suppose I Could Choreograph A Ballet." And I Did It. Suppose I Could Teach Dance At The Theater In Cleveland. And I Did It. Suppose I Could Sing For A Living - That I Could Stop These Two Jobs As A Waitress And A Salesperson.

I Am Convinced That Most People Do Not Grow Up ... Our Real Selves, The Children Inside, Are Still Innocent And Shy As Magnolias.

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

All Men Are Prepared To Accomplish The Incredible If Their Ideals Are Threatened.

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.

Among Other Things, I'm Thinking "i'm A Child Of God." That's Amazing. And "i'm Not Only A Child Of God, But God Loves Me." The Hardest Part For Me Is To Realize That While God Loves Me, And I Am A Child Of God, I Have To See The Bigot And The Brute And The Rapist, And Whether He Or She Knows It Or Not, I Have To Know That That Person Is A Child Of God. That Is Part Of The Responsibility - And It's Hard.

Whining Is Just Unbecoming.

Nobody Can Enjoy Unless We All Enjoy, Truly Enjoy.

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