Maya Angelou
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.Collection: Courage
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.Collection: Morning
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.Collection: Love
If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.Collection: Valentines
Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.Collection: Dating
I'm interested in women's health because I'm a woman. I'd be a darn fool not to be on my own side.Collection: Women
I'm always disappointed when people don't live up to their potential. I know that a number of people look down on themselves and consequently on everybody who looks like them. But that, too, can change.Collection: Change
The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.Collection: Truth
My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.Collection: Hope
Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.Collection: Hope
The best comfort food will always be greens, cornbread, and fried chicken.Collection: Food
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.'Collection: Courage
If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.Collection: Success
You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I'll rise.Collection: History
We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.Collection: Motivational
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.Collection: Morning
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.Collection: Dreams
We are braver and wiser because they existed, those strong women and strong men... We are who we are because they were who they were. It's wise to know where you come from, who called your name.Collection: Women
In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.Collection: Education
It's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.Collection: Forgiveness
Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.Collection: Future
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.Collection: Inspirational
Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.Collection: Inspirational
I never expected anyone to take care of me, but in my wildest dreams and juvenile yearnings, I wanted the house with the picket fence from June Allyson movies. I knew that was yearning like one yearns to fly.Collection: Movies
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.Collection: Poetry
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.Collection: Poetry
All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us that we are all more alike than we are unalike.Collection: Great
Growing up, my grandmother did not want worldly music in the house. Then when I went out to California, I started listening to Spanish music, mostly Mexican music. But were I in Egypt, I would listen to the music of the people, or if I was in Italy, I'd listen to Italian music.Collection: Music
Nothing will work unless you do.Collection: Work
I'm happy to be a writer - of prose, poetry, every kind of writing. Every person in the world who isn't a recluse, hermit or mute uses words. I know of no other art form that we always use.Collection: Poetry
When I cook for my family on Christmas, I make feijoada, a South American dish of roasted and smoked meats like ham, pork, beef, lamb, and bacon - all served with black beans and rice. It's festive but different.Collection: Christmas
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.Collection: Good
If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.Collection: Death
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.Collection: Peace
Elimination of illiteracy is as serious an issue to our history as the abolition of slavery.Collection: History
What is a fear of living? It's being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself - for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don't know what you're here to do, then just do some good.Collection: Space
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.Collection: Home
I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, 'No. No, I'm finished. Bye.' And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won't do that.Collection: Alone
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.Collection: Alone
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.'Collection: Courage
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.Collection: Experience
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.Collection: Food
I was very blessed to have family and friends, but particularly family, who told me I was not only all right, I was just right, so I believe that my brain is a good one, and it's lasting me very well.Collection: Good
The sadness of the women's movement is that they don't allow the necessity of love. See, I don't personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed.Collection: Trust
There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.Collection: Truth
I did work in a strip club, but I didn't strip. I danced, and I became very popular.Collection: Work
The loss of young first love is so painful that it borders on the ludicrous.Collection: Relationship
I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss.Collection: Knowledge
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.Collection: Space
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.Collection: Love