My heart is so heavy when I see the reality of the Indian reservation and as an American, I know I am, too, responsible.

I am serious, so I laugh a lot. You need to laugh. You don't laugh enough. I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh.

I go to a hotel and try to get there by 5:30 in the morning. I keep a dictionary, a thesaurus, a bible, a deck of playing cards, a bottle of sherry, and stacks of yellow sticky pads. I shut myself in for six, seven hours. I have an arrangement with the hotel that no one may go in my room. After three or four months, they might slip notes under my door like, "Dear Ms. Angelou, please let us change the linens. We think they might be molding." It's probably true. I let them in if they promise not to touch anything other then the bed.

If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning 'Good morning' at total strangers.

Look what you've already come through! Don't deny it. Say I'm stronger than I thought I was

The root cause of all the problems we have in the world today is ignorance of course. But most, polarization.

Each one of us has lived through some devastation, some loneliness, some weather superstorm or spiritual superstorm, when we look at each other we must say, I understand. I understand how you feel because I have been there myself. We must support each other and empathize with each other because each of us is more alike than we are unalike.