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" 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

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

" Early on, I was so impressed with Charles Dickens. I grew up in the South, in a little village in Arkansas, and the whites in my town were really mean, and rude. Dickens, I could tell, wouldn't be a man who would curse me out and talk to me rudely. "

" What is a fear of living? It's being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself - for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don't know what you're here to do, then just do some good. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Life loves the liver of it. "

" Black people comprehend the South. We understand its weight. It has rested on our backs... I knew that my heart would break if ever I put my foot down on that soil, moist, still, with old hurts. I had to face the fear/loathing at its source or it would consume me whole. "

Maya Angelou

Down

People

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

Maya Angelou

Parent

Mother

" How wonderful it is to be an American. We have known the best of times and the worst of times. "

" Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible. "

" I think I have had so much blessing - I've had my brother, who was brilliant - I think my family came closest to making a genius when they made my brother - Bailey was just all of that. He loved me. "

Maya Angelou

Brother

Family

" 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

Alone

Ignorance

" 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 want to write so well that a person is 30 or 40 pages in a book of mine... before she realizes she's reading. "

" I think music is one of the hero/sheroes of the African-American existence. "

" I know that when I pray, something wonderful happens. Not just to the person or persons for whom I'm praying, but also something wonderful happens to me. I'm grateful that I'm heard. "

Maya Angelou

Know

Thankful

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

Maya Angelou

Boston

Pops

" 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

" 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'm convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they're stones that don't matter. As long as you're breathing, it's never too late to do some good. "

" If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die. "

" Nothing succeeds like success. Get a little success, and then just get a little more. "

Maya Angelou

Nothing

Little

" It's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay - and rise! "

" Achievement brings its own anticlimax. "

" We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated. "

" I admire people who dare to take the language, English, and understand it and understand the melody. "

" 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. "