Maya Angelou

No one comes from the earth like grass. We come like trees. We all have roots.

You have to have courage to love somebody. Because you risk everything. Everything.

Lift up your eyes upon _x000D_ This day breaking for you. _x000D_ Give birth again _x000D_ To the dream. _x000D_ Women, children, men, _x000D_ Take it into the palms of your hands. _x000D_ Mold it into the shape of your most _x000D_ Private need. Sculpt it into _x000D_ The image of your most public self. _x000D_ Lift up your hearts _x000D_ Each new hour holds new chances _x000D_ For a new beginning.

Exchange love for hate...Thereby, making the present comfortable and the future promising.

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, if I do that well enough, then I'll be able to look after someone else -- the children or the husband or the elderly. But I have to look after myself first. I know that some people think that's being selfish, I think that's being self-full.

I think when we don't know what to do it's wise to do nothing. Sit down quietly; quiet our hearts and minds and breathe deeply.

Forgive yourself - no one else will.

The area where we are the greatest is the area in which we inspire, encourage and connect with another human being.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise. Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear, I rise.

I think a hero is any person really intent on making this a better place for all people.

All my work, my life, everything I do is about survival, not just bare, awful, plodding survival, but survival with grace and faith. While one may encounter many defeats, one must not be defeated.

As long as you're breathing, it's never too late to do some good.

But from a distance. I would have left you whole and wholly for the delectation of those who wanted more and cared less.

I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes - it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'Well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all.

If God put the rainbows right in the clouds themselves, each one of us in the direst and dullest and most dreaded and dreary moments can see a possibility of hope ... Each one of us has the chance to be a rainbow in somebody's cloud.

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, without it, you can practice no other.

I believe talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it. You can plug into it and light up a lamp, keep a heart pump going, light a cathedral, or you can electrocute a person with it. Electricity will do all that. It makes no judgment. I think talent is like that. I believe every person is born with talent.

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans - because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings.

Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, I maintain an attitude of gratitude.

I am always talking about the human condition and about American society in particular: what it is like to be human, what makes us weep, what makes us fall and stumble and somehow rise and go on from darkness into darkness and that darkness carpeted.

Sometimes all you need in love is to make each other happy, to make each other laugh. So long as you can still do that ten years down the line then I think you're gold. Never let the laughter slip from your relationship.