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If I wanted to write, I had to be willing to develop a kind of concentration found mostly in people awaiting execution. I had to learn technique and surrender my ignorance.

Maya Angelou

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Maya Angelou
Age: 86 †
Born: 1928
Born: April 4
Died: 2014
Died: May 28
Author
Autobiographer
Comedian
Dancer
Essayist
Film Director
Film Producer
Human Rights Activist
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Politician
St. Louis
Missouri
Marguerite Annie Johnson
Marguerite Johnson
Marguerite Ann Johnson
Marguerite Anne Johnson
Learn
Execution
Write
Concentration
Found
Mostly
Wanted
Surrender
Writing
Technique
Kind
Develop
People
Ignorance
Willing
Awaiting

More quotes by Maya Angelou

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I don't know how much longer I'll be around. I'll probably be writing when the Lord says, 'Maya, Maya Angelou, it's time.'
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Light and shadow are opposite sides of the same coin. We can illuminate our paths or darken our way. It is a matter of choice.
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Human beings are more alike than unalike, and what is true anywhere is true everywhere, yet I encourage travel to as many destinations as possible for the sake of education as well as pleasure.
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You can't get too high for somebody to bring you down.
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I write because I am a Black woman, listening attentively to her people.
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On this platform of peace, we can create a language to translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.
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I, with millions of other Americans, have the same dream Martin Luther King Jr. had when I wake up I wish some of the things I dreamt would be true. I wish that little black and white boys and girls would hold hands without being shocked at their nearness to each other and say in a natural way, we have overcome.
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If you have a song to sing, who are you not to open your mouth and sing to the world?
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In order to be profoundly dishonest, a person must have one of two qualities: either he is unscrupulously ambitious, or he is unswervingly egocentric.
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Had I not had my grandmother, who dared to be my rainbow in the clouds, I would have been just another sexually abused barefoot black girl on the roads of Arkansas.
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Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.
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We need Joy as we need air. We need Love as we need water. We need each other as we need the earth we share.
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I'm just someone who likes cooking and for whom sharing food is a form of expression.
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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.
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Therefore we pledge to bind ourselves to one another, to embrace our lowliest, to keep company with our loneliest, to educate our illiterate, to feed our starving, to clothe our ragged, to do all good things, knowing that we are more than keepers of our brothers and sisters. We are our brothers and sisters
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The intensity with which young people live demands that they blank out as often as possible.
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Life is a glorious banquet, a limitless and delicious buffet.
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Being a woman is hard work.
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History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
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To be angry is very good. It burns out things and leaves nutrients in the soil. You should always be ready to be angry at injustice and cruelty.
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