Maya Angelou

To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power.

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at it destination, full of hope.

I try to live what I consider a "poetic existence." That means I take responsibility for the air I breathe and the space I take up. I try to be immediate to be totally present for all my work.

Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous or honest.

I do not trust people who don't love themselves and yet tell me 'I love you'. There is an African saying which is: 'Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt'.

My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry, to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.

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

Living a life is like constructing a building: if you start wrong you'll end wrong.

The thorn from the bush one has planted, nourished and pruned, pricks more deeply and draws more blood.

Her passion was never spent in public display.

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.

Then I went back to my mother when I was 13 and she was ready for me.

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.

Some people unable to go to school were more educated and even more intelligent than college professors.

When we cast our bread upon the waters we can presume that someone downstream whose face we will never know will benefit from our action, as we who are downstream from another will profit from that grantor's gift.

Life loves the liver of it.

If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning 'Good morning' at total strangers.

One must know not just how to accept a gift, but with what grace to share it.

Alone all alone, Nobody but nobody, Can make it out here alone.

I find it interesting that the meanest life the poorest existence is attributed to God's will but as human beings become more affluent as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale God descends the scale of responsibility