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" I became the kind of parent my mother was to me. "
Maya Angelou
Parent
Mother
Me
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" Most people don't grow up. It's too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That's the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don't grow up. "
Maya Angelou
Cards
People
Children
" I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver. "
Maya Angelou
Soul
Benefits
Other
" 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. "
Maya Angelou
Myself
Experience
Long
" I believe that each of us comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. "
Maya Angelou
Creator
Believe
Glory
" I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition. "
Maya Angelou
Black
Experience
Speak
" The love of the family, the love of one person can heal. It heals the scars left by a larger society. A massive, powerful society. "
Maya Angelou
Family
Society
Scars
" 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. "
Maya Angelou
Know
Us
Show
" 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. "
Maya Angelou
Us
Alone
Ignorance
" 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. "
Maya Angelou
Said
Me
I Am
" If you're serious, you really understand that it's important that you laugh as much as possible and admit that you're the funniest person you ever met. You have to laugh. Admit that you're funny. Otherwise, you die in solemnity. "
Maya Angelou
Die
Admit
You
" In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me. "
Maya Angelou
Ways
Education
Shaped
" 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. "
Maya Angelou
Myself
Brother
Time
" 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. "
Maya Angelou
You
Help
Person
" Whenever I want to laugh, I read a wonderful book, 'Children's Letters to God.' You can open it anywhere. One I read recently said, 'Dear God, thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy.' "
Maya Angelou
Book
Brother
Children
" 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. "
Maya Angelou
Listening
Know
Love
" 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. "
Maya Angelou
Responsibility
Now
Humility
" 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. "
Maya Angelou
Wise
Strong
Name
" All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened. "
Maya Angelou
Incredible
Accomplish
Prepared
" Courage - you develop courage by doing small things like just as if you wouldn't want to pick up a 100-pound weight without preparing yourself. "
Maya Angelou
Yourself
Small Things
Courage
" I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life. "
Maya Angelou
Done
Grateful
Great
" Until blacks and whites see each other as brother and sister, we will not have parity. It's very clear. "
Maya Angelou
Other
See
Sister
" 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. "
Maya Angelou
Work
Freedom
Good
" Bitterness is cancer - it eats upon the host. It doesn't do anything to the object of its displeasure. "
Maya Angelou
Eats
Anything
Host
" I have great respect for the past. If you don't know where you've come from, you don't know where you're going. I have respect for the past, but I'm a person of the moment. I'm here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I'm at, then I go forward to the next place. "
Maya Angelou
Past
Moment
Respect
" If I'm the people's poet, then I ought to be in people's hands - and, I hope, in their heart. "
Maya Angelou
Poet
Then
Hope
" I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it. "
Maya Angelou
Empathy
Courage
Enough
" 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. "
Maya Angelou
Growing Up
Long
Time
" As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them. "
Maya Angelou
Men
Black
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. "
Maya Angelou
Know
Live
People
" 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. "
Maya Angelou
Good
Blessed
Believe