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" If you want what you're saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody's life. Your own, first. "

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

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

" My life has been long, and believing that life loves the liver of it, I have dared to try many things, sometimes trembling, but daring still. "

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

" All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us that we are all more alike than we are unalike. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

" 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. "

" 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 love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. "

" It's very important to know the neighbor next door and the people down the street and the people in another race. "

" 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

" Modesty is a learned affectation. And as soon as life slams the modest person against the wall, that modesty drops. "

" Every December, I host a tree-trimming party. I serve chili with cornbread and lots of good wine. It's a wonderful party, and it shows how much adults like to play. "

Maya Angelou

Play

Party

" I'm just someone who likes cooking and for whom sharing food is a form of expression. "

" Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you're the funniest person you've ever heard of. "

" Somehow, we have come to the erroneous belief that we are all but flesh, blood, and bones, and that's all. So we direct our values to material things. "

" I have a son, who is my heart. A wonderful young man, daring and loving and strong and kind. "

" I love wisdom. And you can never be great at anything unless you love it. Not be in love with it, but love the thing, admire the thing. And it seems that if you love the thing, and you don't just want to possess it, it will find you. "

" Don't let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don't whine. You can be brought low, that's OK, but don't be reduced by them. Just say, 'That's life.' "

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

Maya Angelou

Them

Guns

" You can't forgive without loving. And I don't mean sentimentality. I don't mean mush. I mean having enough courage to stand up and say, 'I forgive. I'm finished with it.' "

" 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 read the Bible to myself; I'll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud, just to hear the language, hear the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful English is. "

" Once you appreciate one of your blessings, one of your senses, your sense of hearing, then you begin to respect the sense of seeing and touching and tasting, you learn to respect all the senses. "

" One of my lungs is half gone, and the other half, because I smoked for years, has a lesion. So I can't swim anymore and had the swimming pool covered over. Now it's what I call the dance pavilion, and so I and my friends sit out and put music on and watch people dance. "

" What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me. "

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