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...we May Encounter Many Defeats, But We Must Not Be Defeated. That Sounds Goody Two-shoes, I Know, But I Believe That A Diamond Is The Result Of Extreme Pressure And Time. Less Time Is Crystal. Less Than That Is Coal. Less Than That Is Fossilized Leaves. Less Than That It's Just Plain Dirt. In All My Work, In The Movies I Write, The Lyrics The Poetry, The Prose, The Essays, I Am Saying That We May Encounter Many Defeats - Maybe It's Imperative That We Encounter The Defeats - But We Are Much Stronger Than We Appear To Be And Maybe Much Better Than We Allow Ourselves To Be.

-Maya Angelou

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...we May Encounter Many

Maya Angelou

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...we May Encounter Many Defeats, But We Must Not Be Defeated. That Sounds Goody Two-shoes, I Know, But I Believe That A Diamond Is The Result Of Extreme Pressure And Time. Less Time Is Crystal. Less Than That Is Coal. Less Than That Is Fossilized Leaves. Less Than That It's Just Plain Dirt. In All My Work, In The Movies I Write, The Lyrics The Poetry, The Prose, The Essays, I Am Saying That We May Encounter Many Defeats - Maybe It's Imperative That We Encounter The Defeats - But We Are Much Stronger Than We Appear To Be And Maybe Much Better Than We Allow Ourselves To Be.

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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.

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.

Oh, The Holiness Of Being The Injured Party.

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

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.

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Of Course, There Are Those Critics - New York Critics As A Rule - Who Say, 'well, Maya Angelou Has A New Book Out And Of Course It's Good But Then She's A Natural Writer.' Those Are The Ones I Want To Grab By The Throat And Wrestle To The Floor Because It Takes Me Forever To Get It To Sing. I Work At The Language.

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

There Is Nothing So Pitiful As A Young Cynic Because He Has Gone From Knowing Nothing To Believing Nothing.

Knowing Nothing

I Don't Trust Any Revolution Where Love Is Not Allowed.

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."

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

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

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.

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

Jealousy In Romance Is Like Salt In Food. A Little Can Enhance The Savor, But Too Much Can Spoil The Pleasure And, Under Certain Circumstances, Can Be Life-threatening.

Freedom Is Never Free.

If I'm Here, I'll Be Trying To Be A Better Human Being, A Better Writer, A Better Friend And A Better Beloved.

I Try To See Every Day As A Celebration.

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.

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.

Without Courage You Cannot Practice Any Of The Other Virtues.

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.

Every Person Needs To Take One Day Away. A Day In Which One Consciously Separates The Past From The Future. Jobs, Family, Employers, And Friends Can Exist One Day Without Any One Of Us, And If Our Egos Permit Us To Confess, They Could Exist Eternally In Our Absence. Each Person Deserves A Day Away In Which No Problems Are Confronted, No Solutions Searched For. Each Of Us Needs To Withdraw From The Cares Which Will Not Withdraw From Us.

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

Intelligence Always Had A Pornographic Influence On Me.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

In Today's Climate In Our Country, Which Is Sickened With The Pollution Of Pollution, Threatened With The Prominence Of Aids, Riddled With Burgeoning Racism, Rife With Growing Huddles Of The Homeless, We Need Art And We Need Art In All Forms. We Need All Methods Of Art To Be Present, Everywhere Present, And All The Time Present.

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.

Tell The Truth And Not The Facts.

Telling The Truth

I Love The Melodies In The Old Testament, How Preachers Highlight Them When They Read From The Scripture. But I Was Influenced Forever By The New Testament. I Love The Beatitudes, Informing Us That The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth.

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The Holy Spirit Upon My Left Leads My Feet Without Ceasing Into The Camp Of The Righteous And Into The Tents Of The Free.

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Facts Can Obscure The Truth.

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The Loss Of Young First Love Is So Painful That It Borders On The Ludicrous.

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I Liked To Write From The Time I Was About 12 Or 13. I Loved To Read. And Since I Only Spoke To My Brother, I Would Write Down My Thoughts. And I Think I Wrote Some Of The Worst Poetry West Of The Rockies. But By The Time I Was In My 20s, I Found Myself Writing Little Essays And More Poetry - Writing At Writing.

Hope For The Best, Be Prepared For The Worse. Life Is Shocking, But You Must Never Appear To Be Shocked. For No Matter How Bad It Is It Could Be Worse And No Matter How Good It Is It Could Be Better.

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

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."

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.

Education Helps One Case Cease Being Intimidated By Strange Situations.

I'm Young As Morning And Fresh As Dew. Everybody Loves Me And So Do You.

Believe In Yourself

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.

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

It's So Tedious Writing Cookbooks Or Writing The Recipes Because I've Never Been Much Of A Measurer. But To Write A Book, You Have To Measure Everything.

...we May Encounter Many Defeats, But We Must Not Be Defeated. That Sounds Goody Two-shoes, I Know, But I Believe That A Diamond Is The Result Of Extreme Pressure And Time. Less Time Is Crystal. Less Than That Is Coal. Less Than That Is Fossilized Leaves. Less Than That It's Just Plain Dirt. In All My Work, In The Movies I Write, The Lyrics The Poetry, The Prose, The Essays, I Am Saying That We May Encounter Many Defeats - Maybe It's Imperative That We Encounter The Defeats - But We Are Much Stronger Than We Appear To Be And Maybe Much Better Than We Allow Ourselves To Be.

Until Blacks And Whites See Each Other As Brother And Sister, We Will Not Have Parity. It's Very Clear.

In All The Institutions I Try To Be Present And Accountable For All I Do And Leave Undone. I Know That Eventually I Shall Have To Be Present And Accountable N The Presence Of God. I Do Not Wish To Be Found Wanting.

I Have Found That Among Its Other Benefits, Giving Liberates The Soul Of The Giver.

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

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.

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

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.

When I Love Somebody, I Like Him To Be Around; I Like Him To Take Me Out To Dinner; I Like To Look At The Sunset With Him. But If Not, I Love Him And I Hope He's Looking At The Same Sun I Am. Loving Someone Liberates The Lover As Well As The Beloved. And That Kind Of Love Comes With Age. Some Of This Wisdom Came To Me After I Was 50 Or 60.

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.

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.'

Living Well Is An Art That Can Be Developed.

Stepping Onto A Brand-new Path Is Difficult, But Not More Difficult Than Remaining In A Situation, Which Is Not Nurturing To The Whole Woman.

I Look At Some Of The Great Novelists, And I Think The Reason They Are Great Is That They're Telling The Truth. The Fact Is They're Using Made-up Names, Made-up People, Made-up Places, And Made-up Times, But They're Telling The Truth About The Human Being- What We Are Capable Of, What Makes Us Lose, Laugh, Weep, Fall Down, And Gnash Our Teeth And Wring Our Hands And Kill Each Other And Love Each Other.

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

Women Been Gittin' Pregnant Ever Since Eve Ate That Apple.

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.

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.

Yet It Is Only Love Which Sets Us Free.

No Not Me Go Find Someone Else To Bring Down

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.

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

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.

It's Very Hard For Adults To Maintain Respect And Romance So That A Love Affair Can Be Sustained Over Years.

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.

Its Not Where Your Dreams Take You, Its Where You Take Your Dreams.

Any Book That Helps A Child To Form A Habit Of Reading, To Make Reading One Of His Deep And Continuing Needs, Is Good For Him.

The Truth Will Lead Me To All.

Telling The Truth

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.

It Is Very Dangerous To Make A Person Larger Than Life Because, Then, Young Men And Women Are Tempted To Believe, Well, If He Was That Great, He's Inaccessible, And I Can Never Try To Be That Or Emulate That Or Achieve That.

Don't Let The Incidents Which Take Place In Life Bring You Low. And Certainly Don't Whine. You Can Be Brought Low, That's Ok, But Don't Be Reduced By Them. Just Say, 'that's Life.'

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.

Nothing Will Work Unless You Do.

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

Every Journey Begins With A Single Step.

Independence Is A Heady Draught, And If You Drink It In Your Youth, It Can Have The Same Effect On The Brain As Young Wine Does. It Does Not Matter That Its Taste Is Not Always Appealing. It Is Addictive And With Each Drink You Want More.

Try, Start Always At Home. This Is My Encouragement To All Writers, Start At Home. All Virtues And Vices Begin At Home, And Then Spread Abroad.

A Great Soul Serves Everyone All The Time. A Great Soul Never Dies. It Brings Us Together Again And Again.

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

Being A Woman Is Hard Work.

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

If I'm The People's Poet, Then I Ought To Be In People's Hands - And, I Hope, In Their Heart.

I Get Up In The Morning, And I'm Reluctant To Turn On The Television.

It's Very Important To Know The Neighbor Next Door And The People Down The Street And The People In Another Race.

Look What You've Already Come Through! Don't Deny It. Say I'm Stronger Than I Thought I Was

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

Eating Is So Intimate. It's Very Sensual. When You Invite Someone To Sit At Your Table And You Want To Cook For Them, You're Inviting A Person Into Your Life.

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.

I Sustain Myself With The Love Of Family.

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

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.

Love Recognizes No Barriers. It Jumps Hurdles, Leaps Fences, Penetrates Walls To Arrive At Its Destination Full Of Hope.

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

When We Know Better, We Do Better.

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.

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.

Poetry Helps My Soul Escape Its Encasement.

A Leader Sees Greatness In Other People. He Nor She Can Be Much Of A Leader If All She Sees Is Herself.

A Leader Sees Greatness In Other People. He Nor She Can Be Much Of A Leader If All She Sees Is Herself.

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.

Black People Comprehend The South. We Understand Its Weight. It Has Rested On Our Backs... I Knew That My Heart Would Break If Ever I Put My Foot Down On That Soil, Moist, Still, With Old Hurts. I Had To Face The Fear/loathing At Its Source Or It Would Consume Me Whole.

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?

Therefore We Pledge To Bind Ourselves To One Another, To Embrace Our Lowliest, To Keep Company With Our Loneliest, To Educate Our Illiterate, To Feed Our Starving, To Clothe Our Ragged, To Do All Good Things, Knowing That We Are More Than Keepers Of Our Brothers And Sisters. We Are Our Brothers And Sisters

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.

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 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.

I've Learned That Making A 'living' Is Not The Same Thing As 'making A Life'.

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

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.

You Can't Use Up Creativity, Creative Thinking Builds On Itself And Increases The Creativity Of The Thinker...you Can't Use Up Creativity. The More You Use, The More You Have.

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.

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

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

Life Sometimes Gives You A Second Chance.

I Believe Talent Is Like Electricity. We Don't Understand Electricity. We Use It. You Can Plug Into It And Light Up A Lamp, Keep A Heart Pump Going, Light A Cathedral, Or You Can Electrocute A Person With It. Electricity Will Do All That. It Makes No Judgment. I Think Talent Is Like That. I Believe Every Person Is Born With Talent.

Intelligence Always Had A Pornographic Influence On Me.

I Know For Sure That Love Saves Me And That It Is Here To Save Us All.

Ain't Nothin' To It, But To Do It.

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.

Try, Start Always At Home. This Is My Encouragement To All Writers, Start At Home. All Virtues And Vices Begin At Home, And Then Spread Abroad.

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.

You Are The Sum Total Of Everything You've Seen, Heard, Eaten, Smelled, Been Told, Forgot- It's All Right There.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Just As Hope Rings Through Laughter, It Can Also Shine Through Tears.

If You Were The President Of The United States Or The Queen Of England - You Couldn't Have A Person Who Would Be More Protective Than My Mother Was For Me. Which Meant Really That I Could Dare To Do All Sorts Of Things.

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

We Allow Our Ignorance To Prevail Upon Us And Make Us Think We Can Survive Alone, Alone In Patches, Alone In Groups, Alone In Races, Even Alone In Genders.

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.

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

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.

We Will Sometimes Have Defeats In Life But You Can Have Defeats Without Being Defeated, You Could Fail Without Being A Failure. When You See Failure And Defeats As Merely Part Of The Process To Get To When.

Eating Is So Intimate. It's Very Sensual. When You Invite Someone To Sit At Your Table And You Want To Cook For Them, You're Inviting A Person Into Your Life.

Easy Reading Is Damn Hard Writing. But If It's Right, It's Easy. It's The Other Way Round, Too. If It's Slovenly Written, Then It's Hard To Read. It Doesn't Give The Reader What The Careful Writer Can Give The Reader.

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 Know Some People Might Think It Odd - Unworthy Even - For Me To Have Written A Cookbook, But I Make No Apologies. The U.s. Poet Laureate Billy Collins Thought I Had Demeaned Myself By Writing Poetry For Hallmark Cards, But I Am The People's Poet So I Write For The People.

I've Learned That People Will Forget What You Said, People Will Forget What You Did, But People Will Never Forget How You Made Them Feel.

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

Preach It, I Say Preach It.

If You Do Not Like Anything, Alter It. If You Can Not Change It, Adjust Your Mindset. Will Not Complain.

Each Of Us Has The Power And Responsibility To Become A Rainbow In The Clouds.

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.

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.

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

I Am Not Competing With Anyone Other Than Myself. I Want To Be Excellent At Whatever I Do.

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.

Spirit Is An Invisible Force Made Visible In All Life.

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

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.

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James Patterson

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