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" 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. "

Maya Angelou

I Am

Company

The Right Thing

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" Some critics will write 'Maya Angelou is a natural writer' - which is right after being a natural heart surgeon. "

" 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 was born in St. Louis but lived there just for a few minutes in my life. "

" 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. "

" I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself. "

" Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud. "

" I've conducted the Boston Pops! Imagine that! Me! Maya Angelou! I've sang and danced at La Scala! "

Maya Angelou

Boston

Pops

" When I write, I tend to twist my hair. Something for my small mind to do, I guess. "

" 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. "

Maya Angelou

Bible

Work

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

Maya Angelou

Resistance

Life

" I believe that every person is born with talent. "

" I think I have had so much blessing - I've had my brother, who was brilliant - I think my family came closest to making a genius when they made my brother - Bailey was just all of that. He loved me. "

Maya Angelou

Brother

Family

" Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives. "

" 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. "

Maya Angelou

You

Mother

" 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.' "

Maya Angelou

Say

People

" 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. "

Maya Angelou

Family

Christmas

" I'm grateful to intelligent people. That doesn't mean educated. That doesn't mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old people used to call 'mother wit' means intelligence that you had in your mother's womb. That's what you rely on. You know what's right to do. "

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

" I'm a religious woman. And I feel I have responsibility. I have no modesty at all. I'm even afraid of it - it's a learned affectation and it's just stuck on me like decals. Now I pray for humility because that comes from inside out. "

" Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable. "

" I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition. "

" 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. "

" We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans - because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That's why we paint, that's why we dare to love someone - because we have the impulse to explain who we are. "

" 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. "

" If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love. "

" At 50, I began to know who I was. It was like waking up to myself. "

Maya Angelou

Waking Up

Myself

" 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. "

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

" Fighting for one's freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim or good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again. "

" When a person is going through hell, and she encounters someone who went through hellish hell and survived, then she can say, 'Mine is not so bad as all that. She came through, and so can I.' "