quotes from classic

I've read everything Thomas Wolfe ever wrote; my brother and I memorized whole chapters of 'You Can't Go Home Again' and 'Look Homeward, Angel.'

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Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin - find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.

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I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.

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Eating is so intimate. It's very sensual. When you invite someone to sit at your table and you want to cook for them, you're inviting a person into your life.

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The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are.

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One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.

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Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I'll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, 'I'd like to write about that.' Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem.

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I'm grateful to intelligent people. That doesn't mean educated. That doesn't mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old people used to call 'mother wit' means intelligence that you had in your mother's womb. That's what you rely on. You know what's right to do.

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If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.

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The loss of young first love is so painful that it borders on the ludicrous.

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The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you - black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.

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Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.

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If you will have a person enslaved, the first thing you must do is convince yourself that the person is subhuman. The second thing you have to do is convince your allies so you'll have some help, and the third and probably unkindest cut of all is to convince that person that he or she is subhuman and deserves it.

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We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay - and rise!

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When I write, I tend to twist my hair. Something for my small mind to do, I guess.

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A wise woman wishes to be no one's enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone's victim.

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I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool - and I'm not any of those - to say that I don't write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues.

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The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

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Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.

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