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

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

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

"Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean."

"I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back."

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

"Nothing will work unless you do."

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

"As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them."

"I believe that every person is born with talent."

"The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart."

"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."

"If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die."

"Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness."

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

"Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends."

"All great achievements require time."

"While the rest of the world has been improving technology, Ghana has been improving the quality of man's humanity to man."

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

"Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning."

"If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded."

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

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

"There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth."

"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."

"It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength."

"The sadness of the women's movement is that they don't allow the necessity of love. See, I don't personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed."

"If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love."

"For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place."

"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."

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

"The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance."

"Effective action is always unjust."

"I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver."

"While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God's creation."

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

"At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice."

"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."

"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

"Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable."

"I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself."

"Life loves the liver of it."

"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."