Maya Angelou Quotes
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I've always written. There's a journal which I kept from about 9 years old. The man who gave it to me lived across the street from the store and kept it when my grandmother's papers were destroyed. I'd written some essays. I loved poetry, still do. But I really, really loved it then.
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Those of us who submitted or surrendered our ideas and dreams and identities to the 'leaders' must take back our rights, our identities, our responsibilities.
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I speak a number of languages, but none are more beautiful to me than English.
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I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I'll be OK. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me.
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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.
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You are the sum total of everything you've ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot - it's all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.
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When I was 8 years old I became a mute and was a mute until I was 13, and I thought of my whole body as an ear, so I can go into a crowd and sit still and absorb all sound. That talent or ability has lasted and served me until today.
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I'm just like you - I want to be a good human being. I'm doing my best, and I'm working at it. And I'm trying to be a Christian. I'm always amazed when people walk up to me and say, 'I'm a Christian.' I always think, 'Already? You've already got it?' I'm working at it. And at my age, I'll still be working at it at 96.
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I work very hard, and I play very hard. I'm grateful for life. And I live it - I believe life loves the liver of it. I live it.
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I will not sit in a room with black people when the N word is used. I know it was meant to belittle a person, so I will not sit there and have that poison put on me. Now a black person can say, 'Oh, you know, I can use this word because I'm black.'
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I like chicken a lot because chicken is generous - that is to say, it's obedient. It will do whatever you tell it to do.
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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.
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Somehow, we have come to the erroneous belief that we are all but flesh, blood, and bones, and that's all. So we direct our values to material things.
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I don't know how much longer I'll be around. I'll probably be writing when the Lord says, 'Maya, Maya Angelou, it's time.'
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Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin - find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.
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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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I was married a few times, and one of my husbands was jealous of me writing.
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If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.
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In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.
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I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.
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At 50, I began to know who I was. It was like waking up to myself.
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Cooking certain dishes, like roast pork, reminds me of my mother.
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Achievement brings its own anticlimax.
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Whenever something went wrong when I was young - if I had a pimple or if my hair broke - my mom would say, 'Sister mine, I'm going to make you some soup.' And I really thought the soup would make my pimple go away or my hair stronger.