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" I like to have guns around. I don't like to carry them. "

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" Writing and cookery are just two different means of communication. "

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

" In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats - maybe it's imperative that we encounter the defeats - but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike. "

" For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place. "

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

" I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So he spent time trying to be all things to all people - one way guaranteed not to be successful or respected in a lion's den. You can't just play around with all those big cats - you've got to take somebody on. "

" 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. "

" When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. "

" The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God - if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That's what I think. "

" One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest. "

" 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.' "

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

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

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

" 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. "

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

" If we don't plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don't have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don't have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The loss of young first love is so painful that it borders on the ludicrous. "

" And if a person is religious, I think it's good, it helps you a bit. But if you're not, at least you can have the sense that there is a condition inside you which looks at the stars with amazement and awe. "

" I wrote some of the worst poetry west from the Mississippi River, but I wrote. And I finally sometimes got it right. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

The Right Thing

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

" 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. "

" Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning. "

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

" During bad circumstances, which is the human inheritance, you must decide not to be reduced. You have your humanity, and you must not allow anything to reduce that. We are obliged to know we are global citizens. Disasters remind us we are world citizens, whether we like it or not. "

" Don't get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that - if you dare. But get older because it's fun! "