quotes from classic

I had to prove you could be a new kind of black man. I had to show the world.

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It's not bragging if you can back it up.

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I know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin' hell, but as long as they ain't free, I ain't free.

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When you can whip any man in the world, you never know peace.

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Early on, I was so impressed with Charles Dickens. I grew up in the South, in a little village in Arkansas, and the whites in my town were really mean, and rude. Dickens, I could tell, wouldn't be a man who would curse me out and talk to me rudely.

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I don't think there's such a thing as autobiographical fiction. If I say it happened, it happened, even if only in my mind.

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I could fall in love with a sumo wrestler if he told stories and made me laugh. Obviously, it would be easier if someone was African-American and lived next door and went to the same church. Because then I wouldn't have to translate.

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My greatest blessing has been the birth of my son. My next greatest blessing has been my ability to turn people into children of mine.

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Elimination of illiteracy is as serious an issue to our history as the abolition of slavery.

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In all my work, I try to say - 'You may be given a load of sour lemons, why not try to make a dozen lemon meringue pies?'

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I read the Bible to myself; I'll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud, just to hear the language, hear the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful English is.

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Cooking certain dishes, like roast pork, reminds me of my mother.

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Black people comprehend the South. We understand its weight. It has rested on our backs... I knew that my heart would break if ever I put my foot down on that soil, moist, still, with old hurts. I had to face the fear/loathing at its source or it would consume me whole.

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We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.

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The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

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I do like to have guns around. I don't like to carry them. But I like - if somebody is going to come into my house and I have not put out the welcome mat, I want to stop them.

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I know for sure that loves saves me and that it is here to save us all.

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I wrote some of the worst poetry west from the Mississippi River, but I wrote. And I finally sometimes got it right.

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I think a number of the leaders are, whether you like it or not, in the hip-hop generation. And when they understand enough, they'll do wonders. I count on them.

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I don't know how much longer I'll be around. I'll probably be writing when the Lord says, 'Maya, Maya Angelou, it's time.'

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