You can't forgive without loving. And I don't mean sentimentality. I don't mean mush. I mean having enough courage to stand up and say, 'I forgive. I'm finished with it.'

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.

The devil lives in our mistakes, the lord lives in our rights. Who lives in our ignorance, and who wins after all?

Take the blinders from your vision take the padding from your ears and confess you've heard me crying and admit you've seen my tears.

If it is true that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, isn't it also true a society is only as healthy as its sickest citizen and only as wealthy as its most deprived?

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

To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision. Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity. It becomes easier to die and avoid conflict than to maintain a constant battle with the superior forces of maturity.