"Whenever something went wrong when I was young - if I had a pimple or if my hair broke - my mom would say, 'Sister mine, I'm going to make you some soup.' And I really thought the soup would make my pimple go away or my hair stronger."

"Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for."

"This bed yawnsbeneath the weightof our absent selves."

"Elimination of illiteracy is as serious an issue to our history as the abolition of slavery."

"There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing."

"It's still scary every time I go back to the past. Each morning, my heart catches. When I get there, I remember how the light was, where the draft was coming from, what odors were in the air. When I write, I get all the weeping out."

"The caged bird sings with a fearful trill,of things unknown, but longed for still, and his tune is heard on the distant hill, for the caged bird sings of freedom."

"Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!"

"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."

"I've always written. There's a journal which I kept from about 9 years old. The man who gave it to me lived across the street from the store and kept it when my grandmother's papers were destroyed. I'd written some essays. I loved poetry, still do. But I really, really loved it then."

"Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good."

"The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you - black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight."

"The most called-upon prerequisite of a friend is an accessible ear."

"My mom was a terrible parent of young children. And thank God - I thank God every time I think of it - I was sent to my paternal grandmother. Ah, but my mother was a great parent of a young adult."

"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."

"This a a wonderful day. I've never seen this one before."

"We are braver and wiser because they existed, those strong women and strong men... We are who we are because they were who they were. It's wise to know where you come from, who called your name."

"Information helps you to see that you're not alone. That there's somebody in Mississippi and somebody in Tokyo who all have wept, who've all longed and lost, who've all been happy. So the library helps you to see, not only that you are not alone, but that you're not really any different from everyone else."

"Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life."

"All my ways of being are musical and mysterious.Yet I embrace you openly.Ripe with expectancy."

"Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: "I'm with you kid. Let's go.""

"It's good to remember that in crises, natural crises, human beings forget for awhile their ignorances, their biases, their prejudices. For a little while, neighbors help neighbors and strangers help strangers."

"I will look after you and I will look after anybody you say needs to be looked after, any way you say. I am here. I brought my whole self to you. I am your mother."

"Ignorance is a terrible thing. It causes families to lose their center and causes people to lose their control. Ignorance knows no binds. Old people, young people, middle-aged, black, white, can all be ignorant."

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude."

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

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

"When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we're capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. I'm trying for that. But I'm also trying for the language. I'm trying to see how it can really sound. I really love language. I love it for wate it does for us, how it allows us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and delicacies of our existence. And then it allows us to laugh, allows us to show wit. Real wit is shown in language. We need language."

"Your crown has been bought and paid for. Put it on your head and wear it."

"There have been people in my life who meant me well, taught me valuable lessons, and others who have meant me ill and have given me ample notification that my world is not meant to be all peaches and cream."

"You don't want modesty, you want humility. Humility comes from inside out. It says someone was here before me and I'm here because I've been paid for. I have something to do and I will do that because I'm paying for someone else who has yet to come."

"Those of us who submitted or surrendered our ideas and dreams and identities to the 'leaders' must take back our rights, our identities, our responsibilities."

"A friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face."

"Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives."

"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.'"

"That knowledge humbles me, melts my bones, closes my ears, and makes my teeth rock loosely in their gums. And it also liberates me. I am a big bird winging over high mountains, down into serene valleys. I am ripples of waves on silver seas. I'm a spring leaf trembling in anticipation."

"How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!"

"In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours.In all the world, there is no love for you like mine."

"I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it."

"Don't let the man bring you down."

"I want you to write down your blessings."

"I never expected anyone to take care of me, but in my wildest dreams and juvenile yearnings, I wanted the house with the picket fence from June Allyson movies. I knew that was yearning like one yearns to fly."

"Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances."

"Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution."

"If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities."

"If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And if we have the effrontery to talk to anybody with less than courtesy, we tell ourselves and the world we are not very intelligent."

"Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman."

"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."

"I'll never know why it was important to him that the couple (he said it later that he'd never seen them before) would take a picture of the whole Mr. Johnson back to Little Rock.He must have been tired of being crippled, as prisoners tire of penitentiary bars and the guilty tire of blame. The high topped shoes and the cane, his uncontrollable muscles and thick tongue, and the looks he suffered of either contempt or pity had simply worn him out, and for one afternoon, one part of an afternoon, he wanted no part of them.I understood and felt closer to him at that moment than ever before or since."

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