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The Sisters And Brothers That You Meet Give You The Materials Which Your Character Uses To Build Itself. It Is Said That Some People Are Born Great, Others Achieve It, Some Have It Thrust Upon Them. In Truth, The Ways In Which Your Character Is Built Have To Do With All Three Of Those. Those Around You, Those You Choose, And Those Who Choose You.

-Maya Angelou

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The Sisters And Brothers

Maya Angelou

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The Sisters And Brothers That You Meet Give You The Materials Which Your Character Uses To Build Itself. It Is Said That Some People Are Born Great, Others Achieve It, Some Have It Thrust Upon Them. In Truth, The Ways In Which Your Character Is Built Have To Do With All Three Of Those. Those Around You, Those You Choose, And Those Who Choose You.

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There Were People Who Went To Sleep Last Night, Poor And Rich And White And Black, But They Will Never Wake Again. And Those Dead Folks Would Give Anything At All For Just Five Minutes Of This Weather Or Ten Minutes Of Plowing. So You Watch Yourself About Complaining. What You're Supposed To Do When You Don't Like A Thing Is Change It. If You Can't Change It, Change The Way You Think About It.

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Women Should Be Tough, Tender, Laugh As Much As Possible, And Live Long Lives. The Struggle For Equality Continues Unabated, And The Woman Warrior Who Is Armed With Wit And Courage Will Be Among The First To Celebrate Victory.

Words Are Things. You Must Be Careful, Careful About Calling People Out Of Their Names, Using Racial Pejoratives And Sexual Pejoratives And All That Ignorance. Don’t Do That. Some Day We’ll Be Able To Measure The Power Of Words. I Think They Are Things. They Get On The Walls. They Get In Your Wallpaper. They Get In Your Rugs, In Your Upholstery, And Your Clothes, And Finally In To You.

One Of The Wonderful Things About Oprah: She Teaches You To Keep On Stepping.

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

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.

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

I Would Like To Be Known As An Intelligent Woman, A Courageous Woman, A Loving Woman, A Woman Who Teaches By Being.

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.

If We Live Long Enough, We May Even Get Over War. I Imagine A Time When Somebody Will Mention The Word War And Everyone In The Room Will Start To Laugh. And What Do You Mean War?

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

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.

One Isn't Necessarily Born With Courage, But One Is Born With Potential.

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

My Son Is The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me. And Through Me - To A Lot Of People.

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To Make A Difference Is Not A Matter Of Accident...people Choose To Make A Difference.

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

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.

Pretty Women Wonder Where My Secret Lies, Im Not Cute Or Built To Fit A Fashion Models Size.

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

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.

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

Each Of Us Has A Responsibility For Being Alive: One Responsibility To Creation, Of Which We Are A Part, Another To The Creator A Debt We Repay By Trying To Extend Our Areas Of Comprehension.

We Must Be Warriors In The Struggle Against Ignorance

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

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!

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.

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.

The Horizon Leans Forward, Offering You Space To Place New Steps Of Change.

Being A Woman Is Hard Work.

I'm A Positive Thinker And Actor. I Look At A Glass; A Negative Person Sees The Glass And Says: Too Bad It's Half Empty... I Look At The Same Glass And Say: Hallelujah!! It's Half Full!!!

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.

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'm A Spring Leaf Trembling In Anticipation.

I Believe That Quality Level Is Determined Primarily By The Actual Design Of The Product Itself, Not By Quality Control In The Production Process.

I Note The Obvious Differences Between Each Sort And Type, But We Are More Alike, My Friends, Than We Are Unalike.

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.

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

A Mother's Love Liberates.

Don't Get Older Just To Get Wiser. If You Get Older, You Will Be Wiser, I Believe That - If You Dare. But Get Older Because It's Fun!

I'm A Spring Leaf Trembling In Anticipation.

A Woman Needs Someone She Can Trust, Someone Who Laughs When She Laughs, But Who Has Different Ideas So She Can Learn From And Teach To Them. She Needs Someone Who Will Stand Up With Her And Encourage Her To Be A Woman-not Just A Female. See Where You Are, Admit What You Know, And What You Need, And Search For A Sister Friend.

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

Had I Known That The Heart Breaks Slowly, Dismantling Itself Into Unrecognizable Plots Of Misery... Had I Known Yet I Would Have Loved You, Your Brash And Insolent Beauty, Your Heavy Comedic Face And Knowledge Of Sweet Delights, But From A Distance I Would Have Left You Whole And Wholly For The Delectation Of Those Who Wanted More And Cared Less.

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

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

My Life Has Been One Great Big Joke, A Dance That's Walked A Song That's Spoke, I Laugh So Hard I Almost Choke When I Think About Myself.

You Can Never Go Home Again, But The Truth Is You Can Never Leave Home, So It's All Right.

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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.

I Believe We Are Still So Innocent. The Species Are Still So Innocent That A Person Who Is Apt To Be Murdered Believes That The Murderer, Just Before He Puts The Final Wrench On His Throat, Will Have Enough Compassion To Give Him One Sweet Cup Of Water.

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.

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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.

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The Nice Thing About Hope Is That You Can Give It To Someone Else, Someone Who Needs It Even More Than You Do, And You Will Find You Have Not Given Yours Away At All.

I Did Then What I Knew How To Do. Now That I Know Better, I Do Better.

I Thought If I Could Face The Worst Danger Voluntarily, And Triumph, I Would Forever Have Power Over It.

Forgive Yourself - No One Else Will.

Forgive Yourself

We Love And Lose In China, We Weep On England's Moors, And Laugh And Moan In Guinea, And Thrive On Spanish Shores. We Seek Success In Finland, Are Born And Die In Maine. In Minor Ways We Differ, In Major We're The Same.

When We Know Better, We Do Better.

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.

This Conference ? Of, For And About Women ? Is, In Itself, A Rainbow In The Clouds. When Numerous Women Come Together And Show That They Care, Not Only For Themselves But Also For Each Other, That Is The Occasion When A Rainbow Is Shining Down On Somebody Else.

I Speak A Number Of Languages, But None Are More Beautiful To Me Than English.

And One Of My Absolute Favorite Quotes Of All-time, One That I've Adopted As One Of My Greatest Life Mottos: Life Loves To Be Taken By The Lapel And Told: "i'm With You Kid. Let's Go."

When The Human Race Neglects Its Weaker Members, When The Family Neglects Its Weakest One - It's The First Blow In A Suicidal Movement.

What You're Supposed To Do When You Don't Like A Thing Is Change It. If You Can't Change It, Change The Way You Think About It. Don't Complain.

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

There Is A Very Fine Line Between Loving Life And Being Greedy For It.

Inscribed On The Temple Of Apollo

Self Confidence

You May Not Remember What A Person Said To You, You May Not Remember What A Person Did To You, But You Will Never Forget How A Person Made You Feel!

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

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

Loving Someone Liberates The Lover As Well As The Beloved. And That Kind Of Love Comes With Age.

Life Is A Glorious Banquet, A Limitless And Delicious Buffet.

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.

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.

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 Truth Will Lead Me To All.

Telling The Truth

My Hope Is That We Develop Enough Courage To Develop Courage. To Try To Have, Try To Learn To Treat Each Other Fairly, With Generosity And Kindness.

It's Still Scary Every Time I Go Back To The Past. Each Morning, My Heart Catches. When I Get There, I Remember How The Light Was, Where The Draft Was Coming From, What Odors Were In The Air. When I Write, I Get All The Weeping Out.

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!

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

Oh, Black Known And Unknown Poets, How Often Have Your Auctioned Pains Sustained Us? Who Will Compute The Lonely Nights Made Less Lonely By Your Songs, Or By The Empty Pots Made Less Tragic By Your Tales? If We Were A People Much Given To Revealing Secrets, We Might Raise Monuments And Sacrifice To The Memories Of Our Poets, But Slavery Cured Us Of That Weakness.

All Of My History As An African-american Woman, As A Jewish Woman, As A Muslim Woman. I'm Bringing Everything I Ever Knew, And All The Stories I've Read - Everything Good, Strong, Kind And Powerful. I Bring It All With Me Into Every Situation, And I Will Not Allow My Life To Be Minimized By Anybody's Racism Or Sexism Or Ageism.

We Delight In The Beauty Of The Butterfly, But Rarely Admit The Changes It Has Gone Through To Achieve That Beauty.

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

You Can Only Become Truly Accomplished At Something You Love. Don’t Make Money Your Goal. Instead Pursue The Things You Love Doing And Then Do Them So Well That People Can’t Take Their Eyes Off Of You.

During Bad Circumstances, Which Is The Human Inheritance, You Must Decide Not To Be Reduced. You Have Your Humanity, And You Must Not Allow Anything To Reduce That. We Are Obliged To Know We Are Global Citizens. Disasters Remind Us We Are World Citizens, Whether We Like It Or Not.

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.

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.

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 Must Be Warriors In The Struggle Against Ignorance

I Thought If War Did Not Include Killing, I'd Like To See One Every Year.

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

I Keep Hitting The Escape Button But I Am Still Here!

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.

Try To Be All You Can Be To Be The Best Human Being You Can Be. Try To Be That In Your Church, In Your Temple. Try To Be That In Your Classroom. Do It Because It Is Right To Do.

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.

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

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.

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

All Knowledge Is Spendable Currency, Depending On The Market.

This Conference ? Of, For And About Women ? Is, In Itself, A Rainbow In The Clouds. When Numerous Women Come Together And Show That They Care, Not Only For Themselves But Also For Each Other, That Is The Occasion When A Rainbow Is Shining Down On Somebody Else.

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.

You Can Only Become Truly Accomplished At Something You Love. Don’t Make Money Your Goal. Instead Pursue The Things You Love Doing And Then Do Them So Well That People Can’t Take Their Eyes Off Of You.

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

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.

At One Time, You Could Sit On The Rue De La Paix In Paris Or At The Habima Theater In Tel Aviv Or In Medina And You Could See A Person Come In, Black, White, It Didn't Matter. You Said, 'that's An American' Because There's A Readiness To Smile And To Talk To People.

If You Find It In Your Heart To Care For Somebody Else, You Will Have Succeeded.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

I Think We All Have Empathy. We May Not Have Enough Courage To Display It.

I Believe That People Want The Scent Of Love, More Than Anything Else. And I Don't Mean Sentimentality, I Don't Mean Mush. I Mean That Idea, That Human Beings Are More Alike Than We Are Different. And That Means That I Can Love You. I Don't Mean Support You In Bad Things You Do, That I Can Understand Because You're A Human Being.

Spirit Is An Invisible Force Made Visible In All Life.

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

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

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.

The Woman Who Truly Intends To Live A Good Life Is Already Living Phenomenally Since Intent Is Part Of The Achievement.

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

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.

There Is An Intimate Laughter To Be Found Only Among Friends

Inspirational Friendship

Let Us Live So We Do Not Regret Years Of Inertia And Ignorance, So When We Die We Can Say All Of Our Energy Was Dedicated To The Noble Liberation Of The Human Mind And Spirit, Beginning With My Own.

The World Had Taken A Deep Breath And Was Having Doubts About Continuing To Revolve.

When You Know Better You Do Better.

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. Now I Pray For Humility Because That Comes From Inside Out.

Poetry Helps My Soul Escape Its Encasement.

You Don't Need Another Person, Place Or Thing To Make You Whole. God Already Did That. Your Job Is To Know It.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Freedom Is Never Free.

Each One Of Us Has Lived Through Some Devastation, Some Loneliness, Some Weather Superstorm Or Spiritual Superstorm, When We Look At Each Other We Must Say, I Understand. I Understand How You Feel Because I Have Been There Myself. We Must Support Each Other And Empathize With Each Other Because Each Of Us Is More Alike Than We Are Unalike.

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.

My Entire Stay There [high School] Might Have Been Time Lost If It Hadn't Been For The Unique Personality Of A Brilliant Teacher. Miss Kirwin Was That Rare Educator Who Was In Love With Information. I Will Always Believe That Her Love Of Teaching Came Not So Much From Her Liking For Students But From Her Desire To Make Sure That Some Of The Things She Knew Would Find Repositories So That They Could Be Shared Again.

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.

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.

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

African American

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.

When Women Take Care Of Their Health They Become Their Own Best Friend.

Laugh As Much As You Can.

I Live In An Atmosphere Of Music.

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

As Long As You're Breathing, It's Never Too Late To Do Some Good.

If You Don't Like Something, Change It. If You Can't Change It, Change Your Attitude.

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

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

I Agreed A Long Time Ago, I Would Not Live At Any Cost. If I Am Moved Or Forced Away From What I Think Is The Right Thing, I Will Not Do It.

Growing Up At My Grandmother's Table, She Always Had Rice. She Might Do Something As Exotic As Potatoes Or Spaghetti, But There Was Still Always Rice, Just In Case You Needed A Little Rice Fix.

You Have To Develop Ways So That You Can Take Up For Yourself, And Then You Take Up For Someone Else. And So Sooner Or Later, You Have Enough Courage To Really Stand Up For The Human Race And Say, 'i'm A Representative. '

I Have Need Of A Friend. There Is One And Only One Who Will Give The Air From His Failing Lungs For My Body's Mend. And That One Is My Love.

Happiness Is A Chance To Talk To A Friend, To Hear Good Music, To Have A Good Glass Of Wine. Happiness Is A Chance To Be Myself And To Find People With Whom I Agree Or Who I Don't Agree But I Can Learn Something.

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 Try To Describe Myself To God I Say, 'lord, Remember Me? Black? Female? Six-foot Tall? The Writer?' And I Almost Always Get God's Attention.

For Africa To Me... Is More Than A Glamorous Fact. It Is A Historical Truth. No Man Can Know Where He Is Going Unless He Knows Exactly Where He Has Been And Exactly How He Arrived At His Present Place.

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

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

You Can Only Accomplish What I Really Love. Do Not Take The Money As A Goal. Instead, Pursue The Things You Passionate About, And Do Good To Others Can Not Take My Eyes Off You

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

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 Want To Write So Well That A Person Is 30 Or 40 Pages In A Book Of Mine ... Before She Realizes She's Reading.

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.

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.

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.

Anger Is Like Fire. It Burns All Clean.

Nothing Will Work Unless You Do.

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.

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

Nothing Can Dim The Light Which Shines From Within.

Would You Deny Your Son Or Your Daughter The Ecstasy Of Finding Someone To Love?

Finding Someone

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.

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

By No Amount Of Agile Exercising Of A Wistful Imagination Could My Mother Have Been Called Lenient. Generous She Was; Indulgent Never. Kind, Yes, Permissive, Never. In Her World, People She Accepted Paddled Their Own Canoes, Pulled Their Own Weight, Put Their Own Shoulders To Their Own Plows And Pushed Like Hell.

My Mother Raised Me, And Then Freed Me.

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

Fighting For One's Freedom, Struggling Towards Being Free, Is Like Struggling To Be A Poet Or A Good Christian Or A Good Jew Or A Good Muslim Or Good Zen Buddhist. You Work All Day Long And Achieve Some Kind Of Level Of Success By Nightfall, Go To Sleep And Wake Up The Next Morning With The Job Still To Be Done. So You Start All Over Again.

You May Encounter Many Defeats, But You Must Not Be Defeated. In Fact, The Encountering May Be The Very Experience Which Creates The Vitality And The Power To Endure.

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.

The Honorary Duty Of A Human Being Is To Love.

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.

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

I Believe That Each Of Us Comes From The Creator Trailing Wisps Of Glory. So At This Wonderful, Young Age Of 65, I Don't Know Yet What The Lord Has For Me To Do. I Try To Live Up To The Energy And To The Calling, But I Wouldn't Dare Say I Have Even Scratched The Surface Yet.

Even Here In America, We Felt The Cool, Refreshing Breeze Of Freedom When Nelson Mandela Took The Seat Of Presidency In His Country Where Formerly He Was Not Even Allowed To Vote. We Were Enlarged By Tears Of Pride As We Saw Nelson Mandela's Former Prison Guards Invited, Courteously, By Him To Watch From The Front Rows His Inauguration.

Difficult Is A Far Cry From Impossible. The Distance Between These Two Lies Hope. Hope And Fear Cannot Occupy The Same Space At The Same Time. Invite One To Stay.

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.

We Are Not Just Flesh And Blood. And Our Hungers Are Not Going To Be Set Aside As Just Flesh And Blood.

Flesh And Blood

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.

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