Among Other Things, I'm Thinking "i'm A

...we May Encounter Many Defeats, But We Must Not Be Defeated. That Sounds Goody Two-shoes, I Know, But I Believe That A Diamond Is The Result Of Extreme Pressure And Time. Less Time Is Crystal. Less Than That Is Coal. Less Than That Is Fossilized Leaves. Less Than That It's Just Plain Dirt. In All My Work, In The Movies I Write, The Lyrics The Poetry, The Prose, The Essays, I Am Saying That We May Encounter Many Defeats - Maybe It's Imperative That We Encounter The Defeats - But We Are Much Stronger Than We Appear To Be And Maybe Much Better Than We Allow Ourselves To Be.

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.

My People Had Used Music To Soothe Slavery's Torment Or To Propitiate God, Or To Describe The Sweetness Of Love And The Distress Of Lovelessness, But I Knew No Race Could Sing And Dance Its Way To Freedom.

Your Life Is Much More Important That You Can Imagine... It Is Your First Treasure.

Forgive Yourself - No One Else Will.