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

" I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver. "

" 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. "

" I believe that each of us comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "