Maya Angelou

“Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.”

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

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

“All great achievements require time.”

“I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.”

“Whatever you want to do, if you want to be great at it, you have to love it and be able to make sacrifices for it.”

“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.”

“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.”

“It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Politicians must set their aims for the high ground and according to our various leanings, Democratic, Republican, Independent, we will follow. Politicians must be told if they continue to sink into the mud of obscenity, they will proceed alone.”

“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.”