Maya Angelou

Don't get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that - if you dare. But get older because it's fun!

The most important thing I can tell you about aging is this: If you really feel that you want to have an off-the-shoulder blouse and some big beads and thong sandals and a dirndl skirt and a magnolia in your hair, do it. Even if you're wrinkled.

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.

We cannot change the past, but we can change our attitude toward it. Uproot guilt and plant forgiveness. Tear out arrogance and seed humility. Exchange love for hate - thereby, making the present comfortable and the future promising.

It's very important to know the neighbor next door and the people down the street and the people in another race.

I sustain myself with the love of family.

I have heard it said that winter, too, will pass, that spring is a sign that summer is due at last. See, all we have to do is hang on.

We spend precious hours fearing the inevitable. It would be wise to use that time adoring our families, cherishing our friends and living our lives.

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'm always disappointed when people don't live up to their potential. I know that a number of people look down on themselves and consequently on everybody who looks like them. But that, too, can change.

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.

Laugh...It's the sweetest thing one can do for oneself and one's fellow human beings.

When asked how she knows when her writing is where she wants it to be: "I know when it's the best I can do. It may not be the best there is. Another writer may do it much better. But I know when it's the best I can do. I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, 'No. No, I'm finished. Bye.' And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won't do that."

Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.

I've still not written as well as I want to. I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa, in Kowloon, China, in Cape Town, South Africa, can say, 'You know, that's the truth. I wasn't there, and I wasn't a six-foot black girl, but that's the truth.'

The horizon leans forward, offering you space to place new steps of change.

Let me tell so much truth. I want to tell the truth in my work. The truth will lead me to all.

Continue to be bold, courageous. Try to choose the wisest thing and once you've chosen the wisest thing go out and try to achieve it. Be it.

You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.

There is a kind of strength that is almost frightening in Black women. It's as if a steel rod runs right through the head down to the feet.

Let's tell the truth to people. When people ask, 'How are you?' have the nerve sometimes to answer truthfully. You must know, however, that people will start avaoiding you because, they, too, have knees that pain them and heads that hurt and they don't want to know about yours. But think of it this way: If people avoid you, you will have more time to meditate and do fine research on a cure for whatever truly afflicts you.