Maya Angelou

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.

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.

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.

Until blacks and whites see each other as brother and sister, we will not have parity. It's very clear.

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.

All of us knows, not what is expedient, not what is going to make us popular, not what the policy is, or the company policy - but in truth each of us knows what is the right thing to do. And that's how I am guided.

The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we dont have that we never grow we never learn and sure as hell we should never teach.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away.

I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too.

I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me.

If you dont like something change it. If you cant change it change your attitude. Dont complain.

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.

You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right.

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God - if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That's what I think.

I'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.

I do like to have guns around. I don't like to carry them. But I like - if somebody is going to come into my house and I have not put out the welcome mat, I want to stop them.

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise, I rise, I rise.

I'm very, very serious - I'm serious enough not to take myself too seriously. That means I can be completely wedded to the moment. But when I leave that moment, I want to be completely wedded to the next moment.

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles leaps fences penetrates walls to arrive at it destination full of hope.

I not only have the right to stand up for myself, but I have the responsibility. I can't ask somebody else to stand up for me if I won't stand up for myself. And once you stand up for yourself, you'd be surprised that people say, "Can I be of help?".

I dont believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.

I became the kind of parent my mother was to me.

I've never had a dislike for men. I've been badly treated by some. But I've been loved greatly by some. I married a lot of them.

As a nurse, we have the opportunity to heal the heart, mind, soul and body of our patients, their families and ourselves. They may forget your name, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

Prepare yourself so that you can be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud.

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.

If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And if we have the effrontery to talk to anybody with less than courtesy, we tell ourselves and the world we are not very intelligent.

Once you appreciate one of your blessings, one of your senses, your sense of hearing, then you begin to respect the sense of seeing and touching and tasting, you learn to respect all the senses.

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.

In spite of everything that was done to me and my race, in spite of the adversity and the bitter moments, again we rise.

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.

I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another 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.

When it looked like the sun wasn't going to shine any more, there's a rainbow in the clouds.

Let choice whisper in your ear and love murmur in your heart. Be ready. Here comes life.

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.

I've still not written as well as I want to. I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa, in Kowloon, China, in Cape Town, South Africa, can say, 'You know, that's the truth. I wasn't there, and I wasn't a six-foot black girl, but that's the truth.'

I promised myself that I would write as well as I can, tell the truth, not to tell everything I know, but to make sure that everything I tell is true, as I understand it. And to use the eloquence which my language affords me.

Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.

If you're going to live, leave a legacy. Make a mark on the world that can't be erased.

It's good to remember that in crises, natural crises, human beings forget for awhile their ignorances, their biases, their prejudices. For a little while, neighbors help neighbors and strangers help strangers.

My greatest blessing has been the birth of my son. My next greatest blessing has been my ability to turn people into children of mine.

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.

This is a wonderful day I have never seen this one before.

If you will have a person enslaved, the first thing you must do is convince yourself that the person is subhuman. The second thing you have to do is convince your allies so you'll have some help, and the third and probably unkindest cut of all is to convince that person that he or she is subhuman and deserves it.

Bitterness is cancer - it eats upon the host. It doesn't do anything to the object of its displeasure.

If I'm the people's poet, then I ought to be in people's hands - and, I hope, in their heart.

when we give cheerfully and accept gratefully everyone is blessed.

How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!

The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.

First best is falling in love. Second best is being in love. Least best is falling out of love. But any of it is better than never having been in love.

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.

I keep a hotel room in my town, although I have a large house. And I go there at about 5:30 in the morning, and I start working. And I don't allow anybody to come in that room. I work on yellow pads and with ballpoint pens. I keep a Bible, a thesaurus, a dictionary, and a bottle of sherry. I stay there until midday.

What youre supposed to do when you dont like a thing is change it. If you cant change it change the way you think about it. Dont complain.

One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.

Most people don't grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging.

In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.

The dread of futility has been my life long plague.

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.

I will look after you and I will look after anybody you say needs to be looked after any way you say. I am here. I brought my whole self to you. I am your mother.

I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh.

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.

I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.

Whatever you want to do, if you want to be great at it, you have to love it and be able to make sacrifices for it.

Modesty is a learned affectation. And as soon as life slams the modest person against the wall, that modesty drops.

At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.

Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.

For a person who grew up in the '30s and '40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, 'Here I am, read me.' Over time I have learned I am at my best around books.

All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us that we are all more alike than we are unalike.

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.

The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

When the human race neglects its weaker members, when the family neglects its weakest one - it's the first blow in a suicidal movement. I see the neglect in cities around the country, in poor white children in West Virginia and Virginia and Kentucky - in the big cities, too, for that matter.

I sustain myself with the love of family.

I'm considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. And I see myself as a very interested person. I've never been bored in my life.

On Saturday afternoons when all the things are done in the house and there's no real work to be done, I play Bach and Chopin and turn it up real loudly and get a good bottle of chardonnay and sit out on my deck and look out at the garden.

Information helps you to see that you're not alone. That there's somebody in Mississippi and somebody in Tokyo who all have wept, who've all longed and lost, who've all been happy. So the library helps you to see, not only that you are not alone, but that you're not really any different from everyone else.

I created myself. I have taught myself so much.

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.

If I walked into the kitchen without washing my hands as a kid, I'd hear a loud 'A-hem!' from my mother or grandmother. Now I count on other people to do the same.

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.

When younger writers and poets, musicians and painters are weakened by a stemming of funds, they come to me saddened, not as full of dreams and excitement and ideas. I am then weakened and diminished, and made less rich.

Growing up, I decided, a long time ago, I wouldn't accept any manmade differences between human beings, differences made at somebody else's insistence or someone else's whim or convenience.

Without courage you cant practice any other virtue consistently.

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.

People will never forget how you made them feel.

You will face many defeats in your life, but never let yourself be defeated.

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.

Timidity makes a person modest. It makes him or her say, 'I'm not worthy of being written up in the record of deeds in heaven or on earth.' Timidity keeps people from their good. They are afraid to say, 'Yes, I deserve it.'

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.

I want to thank you, Lord, for life and all that's in it. Thank you for the day and for the hour, and the minute.

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.'

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at it destination full of hope.

The terrorist action of 9/11 gave birth to President Obama's entry to the White House. Not directly, but indirectly.

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: 'I'm with you kid. Let's go.'

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.

If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.

You may encounter many defeats but you must not be defeated. Please remember that your difficulties do not define you. They simply strengthen your ability to overcome.

In a magazine, one can get - from cover to cover - 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.

That's the biggest gift I can give anybody: 'Wake up, be aware of who you are, what you're doing and what you can do to prevent yourself from becoming ill.'