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" 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. "

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" The hope, the hope that lives in the breast of the black American, is just so tremendous that it overwhelms me sometimes. "

Maya Angelou

Black

Hope

" 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

" If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities. "

" I thank God I'm myself and for the life I'm given to live and for friends and lovers and beloveds, and I thank God for knowing that all those people have already paid for me. "

" I like to speak on matters which matter to human beings, and almost everything matters to human beings. "

" If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And if we have the effrontery to talk to anybody with less than courtesy, we tell ourselves and the world we are not very intelligent. "

" The most important thing I can tell you about aging is this: If you really feel that you want to have an off-the-shoulder blouse and some big beads and thong sandals and a dirndl skirt and a magnolia in your hair, do it. Even if you're wrinkled. "

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

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

" 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 respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too. "

" The first decade of the twentieth century was not a great time to be born black and poor and female in St. Louis, Missouri, but Vivian Baxter was born black and poor, to black and poor parents. Later she would grow up and be called beautiful. As a grown woman she would be known as the butter-colored lady with the blowback hair. "

" Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I'll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, 'I'd like to write about that.' Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem. "

Maya Angelou

Mind

Think

" I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water. "

" My life has been one great big joke, a dance that's walked a song that's spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

" All great achievements require time. "

" 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 love the song 'I Hope You Dance' by Lee Ann Womack. I was going to write that song, but someone beat me to it. "

Maya Angelou

Hope

You

" 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.' "

" I know for sure that loves saves me and that it is here to save us all. "

Maya Angelou

Save

Sure

" All information belongs to everybody all the time. It should be available. It should be accessible to the child, to the woman, to the man, to the old person, to the semiliterate, to the presidents of universities, to everyone. It should be open. "

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

" 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. "

" While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God's creation. "

" 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. "

Maya Angelou

Rise

History

" 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. "

" Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage. "