The only way you can be a mark is if you want something for nothing. If you're greedy, you're set up.

I'm considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. And I see myself as a very interested person. I've never been bored in my life.

Live as though life was created for you.

Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!

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

I know, that since life is our most precious gift, and as far as we can be absolutely certain, it's given to us to live but once, let us so live we will not regret years of useless virtue, and inertia, and timidity, and ignorance, and in our last moments we can say: 'All my life, all my conscious energies, have been dedicated to the most noble cause in the world, the liberation of the human mind and spirit - beginning with my own'.

Find something you like, go into a room, close the door and read it aloud. Read it aloud. Everybody in the world who likes dance can see dance, or hear music, or see art, or admire architecture - but everybody in the world uses words who is not a recluse or mute. But the writer has to take these most common things, more common than musical notes or dance positions, a writer has to take some adverbs, and verbs and nouns and ball them up together and make them bounce.