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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.

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
Makes
Mountain
Oceans
Reason
Ocean
Climb
Beings
Climbs
Human
Walk
Mountains
Humans
Walks
Swim
Writing
Within
Impulse
Talk
Explain
Write
Brilliant

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The most called-upon prerequisite of a friend is an accessible ear.
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Not everything you do is going to be a masterpiece, but you get art there and you try and sometimes it really happens. The other times you’re just stretching your soul.
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Just as hope rings through laughter, it can also shine through tears.
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Easy reading is damn hard writing. But if it's right, it's easy. It's the other way round, too. If it's slovenly written, then it's hard to read. It doesn't give the reader what the careful writer can give the reader.
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What I think it really means is: I'm a teacher. I am a teacher. I teach all the time, as you do and as all of you do-whether we know it or not, whether we take responsibility for it or not. I hold nothing back because I want to see that light go off. I like to see the children say, 'I never thought of that before.' And I think, 'I've got them!'
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You can see in others what they don't see in themselves and what the world doesn't see in them.
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Each time I write a book, every time I face that yellow pad, the challenge is so great. I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody and they’re going to find me out.
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The happy heart runs with the river, floats on the air, lifts to the music, soars with the eagle, hopes with the prayer.
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If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.
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Try, start always at home. This is my encouragement to all writers, start at home. All virtues and vices begin at home, and then spread abroad.
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I believe that people want the scent of love, more than anything else. And I don't mean sentimentality, I don't mean mush. I mean that idea, that human beings are more alike than we are different. And that means that I can love you. I don't mean support you in bad things you do, that I can understand because you're a human being.
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Everything costs and costs the earth.
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Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait.
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I'm working at trying to be a Christian, and that's serious business. It's like trying to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good Shintoist, a good Zoroastrian, a good friend, a good lover, a good mother, a good buddy: it's serious business.
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All great acheivements require time.
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Loving someone liberates the lover as well as the beloved. And that kind of love comes with age.
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I've learned that making a 'living' is not the same thing as 'making a life'.
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In diversity there is beauty and there is strength.
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When the human race neglects its weaker members, when the family neglects its weakest one - it's the first blow in a suicidal movement.
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There's something which impels us to show our inner souls. The more courageous we are, the more we succeed in explaining what we know.
Maya Angelou