I always felt, if I can get to a library, I'll be OK.

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.

Shakespeare must be a black girl.

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still like dust, I'll rise.

It is sad but true that sometimes we need the tragedy to help us to see how human we are and how we are more alike than we are different.

If a human being dreams a great dream, dares to love somebody; if a human being dares to be Martin King, or Mahatma Gandhi, or Mother Theresa, or Malcolm X; if a human being dares to be bigger than the condition into which she or he was born-it means so can you. And so you can try to stretch, stretch, stretch yourself so you can internalize, 'Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto. I am a human being, nothing human can be alien to me.' That's one thing I'm learning.

Of course, there are those critics - New York critics as a rule - who say, 'Well, Maya Angelou has a new book out and of course it's good but then she's a natural writer.' Those are the ones I want to grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor because it takes me forever to get it to sing. I work at the language.