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There Are Those Who Say That Poets Should Use Her And His Art To Change The World. I'd Agree With That, But I Think Everybody Should Do That. I Think The Chef And The Baker And The Candlestick Maker - I Think Everybody Should Be Hoping To Make It A Better World.

-Maya Angelou

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There Are Those Who

Maya Angelou

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There Are Those Who Say That Poets Should Use Her And His Art To Change The World. I'd Agree With That, But I Think Everybody Should Do That. I Think The Chef And The Baker And The Candlestick Maker - I Think Everybody Should Be Hoping To Make It A Better World.

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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 Certainly Do Not Adore The Writer's Discipline. I Have Lost Lovers, Endangered Friendships, And Blundered Into Eccentricity, Impelled By A Concentration Which Usually Is To Be Found Only In The Minds Of People About To Be Executed In The Next Half Hour.

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

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

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

I Don't Think Modesty Is A Very Good Virtue, If It Is A Virtue At All. A Modest Person Will Drop The Modesty In A Minute. It's A Learned Affectation.

The Charitable Say In Effect, 'i Seem To Have More Than I Need And You Seem To Have Less Than You Need. I Would Like To Share My Excess With You.' Fine, If My Excess Is Tangible, Money Or Goods, And Fine If Not, For I Learned That To Be Charitable With Gestures And Words Can Bring Enormous Joy And Repair Injured Feelings.

The Truth Brings The Past Into The Present And Prepares Us For The Future. That's What Truth Does

Past Present Future

There Is A Lot Of Ignorance, And I Don't Mean Intellectual Ignorance. I Mean People Think That If You Get Something, It Will Take Away From What I Have. It's Just Ignorance.

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.

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.

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

While The Rest Of The World Has Been Improving Technology, Ghana Has Been Improving The Quality Of Man's Humanity To Man.

If On Judgement Day I Were Summoned By St. Peter To Give Testimony To The Used-to-be Sheriff's Act Of Kindness, I Would Be Unable To Say Anything In His Behalf. His Confidence That My Uncle And Every Other Black Man Who Heard Of The Klan's Coming Ride Would Scurry Under Their Houses To Hide In Chicken Droppings Was Too Humiliating To Hear. Without Waiting For Momma's Thanks, He Rode Out Of The Yard, Sure That Things Were As They Should Be And That He Was A Gentle Squire, Saving Those Deserving Serfs From The Laws Of The Land, Which He Condoned.

We Really Are 15 Countries, And It's Remarkable That Each Of Us Thinks We Represent The Real America. The Midwesterner In Kansas, The Black American In Durham - Both Are Certain They Are The Real American.

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

I Think That That's The Wisest Thing - To Prevent Illness Before We Try To Cure Something.

We Are More Alike Than Unalike.

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. And Then That's How You Get To Know Yourself. You Say, Hmm, I Can Get Up!

When I Say 'i Am A Christian', I'm Not Shouting 'i'm Saved'. I'm Whispering 'i Get Lost'. That Is Why I Chose This Way.

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 Think When We Don't Know What To Do It's Wise To Do Nothing. Sit Down Quietly; Quiet Our Hearts And Minds And Breathe Deeply.

Christians Already? It Seems To Me That It Takes A Lifetime Of Work.

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

Education Is A Process That Goes On 'til Death. The Moment You See Someone Who Knows She Has Found The One True Way, And Can Call All The Others False, Then You Know You're In The Company Of An Ignoramus.

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.

Ask For What You Want And Be Prepared To Get It!

Being A Woman Is Hard Work.

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.

Blacks Concede That Hurrawing, Jibing, Jiving, Signifying, Disrespecting, Cursing, Even Outright Insults Might Be Acceptable Under Particular Conditions, But Aspersions Cast Against One's Family Call For Immediate Attack.

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'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 Wish That We Could Look Into Each Other's Faces, In Each Other's Eyes, And See Our Own Selves. I Hope That The Children Have Not Been So Scarred By Their Upbringing That They Only Think Fear When They See Someone Else Who Looks Separate From Them.

Intelligence Always Had A Pornographic Influence On Me.

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.

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

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

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

I Had Read A Tale Of Two Cities And Found It Up To My Standards As A Romantic Novel. She Opened The First Page And I Heard Poetry For The First Time In My Life...her Voice Slid In And Curved Down Trough And Over The Words. She Was Nearly Singing.

Everybody Born Comes From The Creator Trailing Wisps Of Glory.

The Needs Of A Society Determine Its Ethics, And In The Black American Ghettos The Hero Is That Man Who Is Offered Only The Crumbs From His Country's Table But By Ingenuity And Courage Is Able To Take For Himself A Lucullan Feast. Hence The Janitor Who Lives In One Room But Sports A Robin's-egg-blue Cadillac Is Not Laughed At But Admired, And The Domestic Who Buys Forty-dollar Shoes Is Not Criticized But Is Appreciated. We Know That They Have Put To Use Their Full Mental And Physical Powers. Each Single Gain Feeds Into The Gains Of The Body Collective.

Poetry Is Music Written For The Human Voice.

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.

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.

Intelligence Always Had A Pornographic Influence On Me.

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.

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."

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

If It Is True That A Chain Is Only As Strong As Its Weakest Link, Isn't It Also True A Society Is Only As Healthy As Its Sickest Citizen And Only As Wealthy As Its Most Deprived?

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.

We Are Growing Up. We Are Growing Up! Out Of The Idiocies - The Ignorances Of Racism And Sexism And Ageism And All Those Ignorances.

I Suggest That The Great Art Belongs To All People, All The Time--that Indeed It Is Made For The People, By The People, To The People.

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

Being Physically Close To Extreme Power Causes One To Experience A Giddiness, An Intoxication.

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

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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.

The Future Is Plump With Promise.

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.

Achievement Brings Its Own Anticlimax.

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

At Our Best, We're All Teachers

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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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.'

You Can't Get Too High For Somebody To Bring You Down.

Let Me Tell So Much Truth. I Want To Tell The Truth In My Work. The Truth Will Lead Me To All.

Telling The Truth

Each Of Us Has The Right And The Responsibility To Assess The Roads Which Lie Ahead, And Those Over Which We Have Traveled, And If The Future Road Looms Ominous Or Unpromising, And The Roads Back Uninviting, Then We Need To Gather Our Resolve And, Carrying Only The Necessary Baggage, Step Off That Road Into Another Direction. If The New Choice Is Also Unpalatable, Without Embarrassment, We Must Be Ready To Change That As Well.

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

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

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

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

I Do Not Need To Know All Things. I Remind Myself That It Is Sufficient That I Know What I Know And Know That Without Believing That I Will Always Know What I Know Or That What I Know Will Always Be True.

All Great Achievements Require Time.

I Agree With Balzac And 19th-century Writers, Black And White, Who Say, 'i Write For Money.' Yes, I Think Everybody Should Be Paid Handsomely; I Insist On It, And I Pay People Who Work For Me, Or With Me, Handsomely.

Black And White

Someone Was Hurt Before You, Wronged Before You, Hungry Before You, Frightened Before You, Beaten Before You, Humiliated Before You, Raped Before You... Yet, Someone Survived... You Can Do Anything You Choose To Do.

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When I'm 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've Learned That You Can Tell A Lot About A Person By The Way He/she Handles These Three Things: A Rainy Day, Lost Luggage And Tangled Christmas Tree Lights. I've Learned That Making A 'living' Is Not The Same Thing As 'making A Life'. I've Learned That Whenever I Decide Something With An Open Heart, I Usually Make The Right Decision. 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 Some Things Back.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Life Loves To Be Taken By The Lapel And Told: 'i'm With You Kid. Let's Go.'

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.

Listen To Some Good Poetry. You See? It Keeps Us From Thinking We Are Only What Our Blatant Appetites Describe Us As.

Hold Those Things That Tell Your History And Protect Them.

I Do Hope That Young Men And Women Will Start To Think For Themselves And Start To Take Responsibility For Their Own Thoughts.

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.

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.

No Matter What Happens, Or How Bad It Seems Today, Life Does Go On, And It Will Be Better Tomorrow.

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.

When The Storyteller Tells The Truth, She Reminds Us That Human Beings Are More Alike Than Unalike... A Story Is What It's Like To Be A Human Being-to Be Knocked Down And To Miraculously Arise. Each One Of Us Has Arisen, Awakened. We Do Rise.

On This Platform Of Peace, We Can Create A Language To Translate Ourselves To Ourselves And To Each Other.

You Have To Deal With What You Encounter. But You Must Not Be Reduced. And So A Way Not To Be Reduced Is Don't Whine! Don't Let The Incidents Which Take Place In Life Bring You Low.

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

If Our Children Are To Approve Of Themselves, They Must See That We Approve Of Ourselves.

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.

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.

The Best Candy Shop A Child Can Be Left Alone In, Is The Library

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

On This Platform Of Peace, We Can Create A Language To Translate Ourselves To Ourselves And To Each Other.

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.

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.

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.

Grace Is Like A Lake Of Drinkable Water Right Outside Your Door. But You Stay Inside And Die Of Thirst.

We All Have That Possibility, That Potential And That Promise Of Seeing Beyond The Seeming.

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.

There Are Those Who Say That Poets Should Use Her And His Art To Change The World. I'd Agree With That, But I Think Everybody Should Do That. I Think The Chef And The Baker And The Candlestick Maker - I Think Everybody Should Be Hoping To Make It A Better World.

Never Whine. Whining Lets A Brute Know That A Victim Is In The Neighborhood.

My Mother Raised Me, And Then Freed Me.

There Is No Place Where God Is Not.

Elimination Of Illiteracy Is As Serious An Issue To Our History As The Abolition Of Slavery.

Abolition Of Slavery

I Long For The Time When All Human History Is Taught As One History, Because It Really Is.

I'm Grateful To Be An American. I Am Grateful That We Can Be Angry At The Terrorist Assault And At The Same Time Be Intelligent Enough Not To Hold A Grudge Against Every Arab And Every Muslim.

I Long, As Does Every Human Being, To Be At Home Wherever I Find Myself.

While The Rest Of The World Has Been Improving Technology, Ghana Has Been Improving The Quality Of Man's Humanity To Man.

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

In The 16th Century, [niccolò] Machiavelli - In An Attempt To Get Back In The Good Graces Of The Powerful - Wrote A Slim Volume Called The Prince. In That Book He Showed The Powers That Be How To Control The People. That Book Is A Statement: Separate And Rule, Divide And Conquer. That's Five Hundred Years Ago And It Still Works, Because We Allow Ourselves To Be Lead Around With Holes Through Our Noses.

Creativity Or Talent, Like Electricity, Is Something I Don't Understand But Something I'm Able To Harness And Use.

Forgiveness. It's One Of The Greatest Gifts You Can Give Yourself, To Forgive. Forgive Everybody. You Are Relieved Of Carrying That Burden Of Resentment. You Really Are Lighter. You Feel Lighter. You Just Drop That.

I'm A Writer And Writers Either Have Good Memories Or Nothing At All.

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!!!

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

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

I Know Something Better Is On The Road For Me.

Something Better

I Encourage Courtesy. To Accept Nothing Less Than Courtesy, And To Give Nothing Less Than Courtesy.

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

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

My People Had Used Music To Soothe Slavery's Torment Or To Propitiate God, Or To Describe The Sweetness Of Love And The Distress Of Lovelessness, But I Knew No Race Could Sing And Dance Its Way To Freedom.

We All Have That Possibility, That Potential And That Promise Of Seeing Beyond The Seeming.

Determine To Live Life With Flair And Laughter.

I Will Write On The Pages Of History What I Want Them To Say. I Will Be Myself. I Will Speak My Own Name.

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.

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

You Don't Want Modesty, You Want Humility. Humility Comes From Inside Out. It Says Someone Was Here Before Me And I'm Here Because I've Been Paid For. I Have Something To Do And I Will Do That Because I'm Paying For Someone Else Who Has Yet To Come.

Listen Carefully To What Country People Call Mother Wit. In Those Homely Sayings Are Couched The Collective Wisdom Of Generations.

I Find In My Poetry And Prose The Rhythms And Imagery Of The Best - I Mean, When I'm At My Best - Of The Good Southern Black Preachers. The Lyricism Of The Spirituals And The Directness Of Gospel Songs And The Mystery Of Blues Are In My Music Or In My Poetry And Prose, Or I Missed Everything.

My People Couldn't Have Survived Slavery Without Having Hope That It Would Get Better. And There's Some Songs From The 19th And 18th Century That Say [sings], "by And By, By And By, I Will Lay Down, This Heavy Load." And I Mean, So Many Songs That Spoke Of Hope And Understand It Better By And By. Amazing Songs. So That The Slaves, Just Knowing That He, She, Did Not Have The Right Legally To Walk Within One Inch Away From Where The Slave Owner Dictated, And Yet The Same Person, Wrote And Sang With Fervor, "if The Lord Wants Somebody, Here Am I, Send Me." It's Amazing.

No One Has Ever Become Poor From Giving.

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.

I'm Really Saddened By The Attempts To Separate And Polarize. This Is A Time When We Have Hungry People, People Out Of Work, And People Out Of Spirit. This Is A Time Where We Need To Uplift, Not To Separate.

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

Will To Survive

Depending On Who I Am Talking About Or Who's Talking Through Me - If The Person Is A Kind Of Hip-hop, Or Rhythm And Blues Person, Or If The Person Is A Kind Of Old-fashion Gothic, Meaning Gothic Attitude, Then That Will Determine What Form The Poem Will Take.

If Growing Up Is Painful For The Southern Black Girl, Being Aware Of Her Displacement Is The Rust On The Razor That Threatens The Throat. It Is An Unnecessary Insult.

Food Served Is Always More Than Just Food Served. That Is To Say, It Is More Than Just Fuel For The Body. Depending Upon Who Has Prepared The Food And Who Has Served It And With What Spirit, It Can Uplift The - And Around The World, In Every Culture, Food Is Used To Flirt, To Be Coy, A Raise In The Employment Or To Search For Employment. It Can Bring Warring Factions Together.

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.'

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

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

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.

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.

The Truth Will Lead Me To All.

Telling The Truth

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

If We Are Honest And Fair, Then We Are Known By That. If We Are Not, Alas, We Are Known By That As Well. What We Want To Do Is Do Right, But You Have To Say It, You Have To Show It, And Not Stop.

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

When Things Were Very Bad His Soul Just Crawled Behind His Heart And Curled Up And Went To Sleep

We Are All Creative, But By The Time We Are Three Of Four Years Old, Someone Has Knocked The Creativity Out Of Us. Some People Shut Up The Kids Who Start To Tell Stories. Kids Dance In Their Cribs, But Someone Will Insist They Sit Still. By The Time The Creative People Are Ten Or Twelve, They Want To Be Like Everyone Else.

I Believe What I Have To Say Is Important, And I Believe The People Coming To Hear Me Are Important, And So The Occasion Of Itself Alone Has An Importance, Which Forces Me To Stare Down My Nerves.

Whenever I'm Around Some Who Is Modest, I Think, 'run Like Hell And All Of Fire.' You Don't Want Modesty, You Want Humility.

Some Critics Will Write 'maya Angelou Is A Natural Writer' - Which Is Right After Being A Natural Heart Surgeon.

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.'

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Whining Lets The Brute Know There's A Victim For Him In The Neighborhood!

I'm Very Blessed That I Have A Healthy Temper. I Can Become Quite Angry And Burning In Anger, But I Have Never Been Bitter. Bitterness Is A Corrosive, Terrible Acid. It Just Eats You And Makes You Sick.

The Charitable Say In Effect, 'i Seem To Have More Than I Need And You Seem To Have Less Than You Need. I Would Like To Share My Excess With You.' Fine, If My Excess Is Tangible, Money Or Goods, And Fine If Not, For I Learned That To Be Charitable With Gestures And Words Can Bring Enormous Joy And Repair Injured Feelings.

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

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.

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

Finding Someone

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

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.

You Have To Have Courage To Love Somebody. Because You Risk Everything. Everything.

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.

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.

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

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.

In Spite Of Everything That Was Done To Me And My Race, In Spite Of The Adversity And The Bitter Moments, Again We Rise.

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.

The Needs Of A Society Determine Its Ethics.

There Is A Lot Of Ignorance, And I Don't Mean Intellectual Ignorance. I Mean People Think That If You Get Something, It Will Take Away From What I Have. It's Just Ignorance.

I Want To Be Representative Of My Race-the Human Race. I Have A Chance To Show How Kind We Can Be, How Intelligent And Generous We Can Be.

You Can See In Others What They Don't See In Themselves And What The World Doesn't See In Them.

When Members Of A Society Wish To Secure That Society's Rich Heritage They Cherish Their Arts And Respect Their Artists. The Esteem With Which We Regard The Multiple Cultures Offered In Our Country Enhances Our Possibilities For Healthy Survival And Continued Social Development.

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

Wonderful Things

I Couldn't Tell Fact From Fiction, Or If The Dream Was True My Only Sure Prediction In This World Was You. I'd Touch Your Features Inchly. Beard Love And Dared The Cost, The Sented Spiel Reeled Me Unreal And I Found My Senses Lost.

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.

Some Critics Will Write 'maya Angelou Is A Natural Writer' - Which Is Right After Being A Natural Heart Surgeon.

As Far As I Knew White Women Were Never Lonely, Except In Books. White Men Adored Them, Black Men Desired Them And Black Women Worked For Them.

You Can Only Become Great At Something You Are Willing To Sacrifice For

When Someone Shows You Who They Are, Believe Them The First Time. People Know Themselves Much Better Than You Do. That's Why It's Important To Stop Expecting Them To Be Something Other Than Who They Are

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