It is this belief in a power larger than myself and other than myself which allows me to venture into the unknown and even the unknowable.

I dreamt we walked together along the shore. We made satisfying small talk and laughed. This morning I found sand in my shoe and a seashell in my pocket. Was I only dreaming?

I did then what I knew best, when I knew better, I did better. Maya Angelo

The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

A black person grows up in this country – and in many places – knowing that racism will be as familiar as salt to the tongue. Also, it can be as dangerous as too much...

All of us knows, not what is expedient, not what is going to make us popular, not what the policy is, or the company policy – but in truth each of us knows what is...

When a person is going through hell, and she encounters someone who went through hellish hell and survived, then she can say, ‘Mine is not so bad as all that. She came through, and so...

If you will have a person enslaved, the first thing you must do is convince yourself that the person is subhuman. The second thing you have to do is convince your allies so you’ll have...

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.

Growing up, I decided, a long time ago, I wouldn’t accept any manmade differences between human beings, differences made at somebody else’s insistence or someone else’s whim or convenience.

It’s so tedious writing cookbooks or writing the recipes because I’ve never been much of a measurer. But to write a book, you have to measure everything.

If funkytown was a trailerpark, this guy would be a double-wide.

I am convinced that most people do not grow up…We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years...

What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat,’…. And it might be just the most boring and awful...

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...

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more intelligent and more educated than college professors.

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

A cynical young person is almost the saddest sight to see, because it means that he or she has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

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

I thank God I’m myself and for the life I’m given to live and for friends and lovers and beloveds, and I thank God for knowing that all those people have already paid for me.

I believe that every person is born with talent.

I’m not a writer who teaches. I’m a teacher who writes.

When younger writers and poets, musicians and painters are weakened by a stemming of funds, they come to me saddened, not as full of dreams and excitement and ideas. I am then weakened and diminished,...

Be present in all things and thankful for all things.

I sustain myself with the love of family.

Segregation shaped me; education liberated me.

While the rest of the world has been improving technology, Ghana has been improving the quality of mans humanity to a man.

To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision.

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

Encouragement to all women is – let us try to offer help before we have to offer therapy. That is to say, let’s see if we can’t prevent being ill by trying to offer a...

I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too.

In a magazine, one can get – from cover to cover – 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.

Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.

I’ve read everything Thomas Wolfe ever wrote; my brother and I memorized whole chapters of ‘You Can’t Go Home Again’ and ‘Look Homeward, Angel.’

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...

Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.

I don’t trust people who don’t love themselves and tell me, ‘I love you.’ … There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.

That’s what you want to do? Then nothing beats a trial but a failure. Give it everything you’ve got. I’ve told you many times, ‘Cant do is like Dont Care.’ Neither of them have a...

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...

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and the dragons of home under one’s skin, at the extreme corners of one’s eyes and...

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.

I agree with Balzac and 19th-century writers, black and white, who say, ‘I write for money.’ Yes, I think everybody should be paid handsomely; I insist on it, and I pay people who work for...

Our stories come from our lives and from the playwright’s pen, the mind of the actor, the roles we create, the artistry of life itself and the quest for peace.

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...

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

Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important....

The language of all the interpretations, the translations, of the Judaic Bible and the Christian Bible, is musical, just wonderful. I read the Bible to myself; I’ll take any translation, any edition, and read it...

We need much less than we think we need.

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.