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Her mom is very thankful because her daughter came back.

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Looking for the best quotes about being thankful? We've compiled a list of top 60 "be thankful" quotes and thankfulness sayings.

60 Thankful Quotes And Thankfulness Sayings

60

"When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself." - Tecumseh

59

"If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share." - W. Clement Stone

58

"Every morning, I wake up and think about 10 different things I'm thankful for, and I continue to spread that love throughout the day, always visualizing, meditating, and growing." - Shameik Moore

57

"It's important you stay professional and keep working, and I'm thankful for everything that's happened to me." - Dele Alli

56

"Be thankful for everything that happens in your life; it's all an experience." - Roy T. Bennett

55

"Never take anything for granted." - Benjamin Disraeli

54

"He enjoys much who is thankful for little." - Thomas Secker

53

"I have a lot to be thankful for. I am healthy, happy and I am loved." - Reba McEntire

52

"We can always find something to be thankful for, and there may be reasons why we ought to be thankful for even those dispensations which appear dark and frowning." - Albert Barnes

51

"The unthankful heart discovers no mercies; but the thankful heart will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings." - Henry Ward Beecher

50

"When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity." - Elie Wiesel

49

"The trick is to be grateful when your mood is high and graceful when it is low." - Richard Carlson

48

"I'm thankful to be breathing, on this side of the grass. Whatever comes, comes." - Ron Perlman

47

"I've started to look at life differently. When you're thanking God for every little you - every meal, every time you wake up, every time you take a sip of water - you can't help but be more thankful for life itself, for the unlikely and miraculous fact that you exist at all." - A.J. Jacobs

46

"I'm so thankful for that struggling period. That time is really great where you have no idea what's going to happen." - Abbi Jacobson

45

"I'm thankful for each and every day. We never know when time is up." - Chuck Berry

44

"Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts." - Henri Frederic Amiel

43

"Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

42

"The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest." - William Blake

41

"Be thankful for problems. If they were less difficult, someone with less ability might have your job." - Jim Lovell

40

"Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that thankfulness is indeed a virtue." - William Bennett

39

"When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude." - Gilbert K. Chesterton

38

"I'm thankful to God that my life changed, but I'm also still on my grind." - Tory Lanez

37

"I'm just thankful I'm surrounded by good people." - Jon Pardi

36

"I'm thankful for every moment." - Al Green

35

"Whatever life throws at me I'll take it and be grateful for it as well." - Tom Felton

34

"Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only." - Samuel Butler

33

"Gratitude is the sign of noble souls." - Aesop

32

"Thank you for life, and all the little ups and downs that make it worth living." - Travis Barker

31

"Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for." - Will Rogers

30

"I'm thankful I grew up the way I did. It made me a hard worker and insightful to other people's lives." - Rachel Roy

29

"Of all the characteristics needed for both a happy and morally decent life, none surpasses gratitude. Grateful people are happier, and grateful people are more morally decent." - Dennis Prager

28

"I'm grateful for always this moment, the now, no matter what form it takes." - Eckhart Tolle

27

"There's no happier person than a truly thankful, content person." - Joyce Meyer

26

"Joy is the simplest form of gratitude." - Karl Barth

25

"Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns; I am thankful that thorns have roses." - Alphonse Karr

24

"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough." - Meister Eckhart

23

"Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough." - Oprah Winfrey

22

"I am what I am, I'm doing very well in my life, and I'm thankful to God for that." - LL Cool J

21

"Let me encourage you to get up every day and focus on what you do have in life. Be thankful for the blessings of the little things, even when you don't get what you expect." - Victoria Osteen

20

"When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around." - Willie Nelson

19

"Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

18

"Be true to yourself, help others, make each day your masterpiece, make friendship a fine art, drink deeply from good books - especially the Bible, build a shelter against a rainy day, give thanks for your blessings and pray for guidance every day." - John Wooden

17

"Make it a habit to tell people thank you. To express your appreciation, sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you, and you'll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life, and you'll find that you have more of it." - Ralph Marston

16

"I do believe that God blessed me in life with a wonderful family, a successful career, and a loving marriage, and remain thankful for that blessing." - Bonnie Tyler

15

"I'm just thankful for everything, all the blessings in my life, trying to stay that way. I think that's the best way to start your day and finish your day. It keeps everything in perspective." - Tim Tebow

14

"I was given such a great gift. It's a miracle that never stops amazing me and reminding me to give thanks, every day. Having a wife and daughter gives me a lot more purpose. I was much more selfish before, but now I think about what kind of role model I'll be. I just want to be a better man." - Jake Owen

13

"Thank you is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding." - Alice Walker

12

"I am thankful the most important key in history was invented. It's not the key to your house, your car, your boat, your safety deposit box, your bike lock or your private community. It's the key to order, sanity, and peace of mind. The key is 'Delete." - Elayne Boosler

11

"Be grateful for what you have and stop complaining - it bores everybody else, does you no good, and doesn't solve any problems." - Zig Ziglar

10

"If you suffer, thank God! It is a sure sign that you are alive." - Elbert Hubbard

9

"I feel grateful because I have a lot of love in my life. I found the person I'm sharing my life with. I have a good man." - Gisele Bundchen

8

"I am going to spend my time today just thanking the people that played a role in my career, because I truly do believe that I was blessed by a lot of people that paths crossed mine as I went down the road in my career." - Nolan Ryan

7

"No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks." - James Allen

6

"I wouldn't change anything. I've made mistakes, but thanks to those mistakes, I've learned." - Enrique Iglesias

5

"I'm really thankful and complimented when people come to me and say, thank you for the great times for all these years. But I don't think about it as being a leader." - Bill Kreutzmann

4

"I'm just thankful to have a tour and work something I can focus on." - Jerry Cantrell

3

"I'm thankful because all the hard work and sacrifices were worth it in the end." - WizKid

2

"I want to thank you for the profound joy I've had in the in the thought of you." - Rosie Alison

1

"I am thankful that there are those among us who have sacrificed dearly on behalf of us. And I ardently pray to God that I might be less like myself and more like them." - Craig D. Lounsbrough

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60 Thankful Quotes And Thankfulness Sayings

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Looking for the best quotes about being thankful? We've compiled a list of top 60 "be thankful" quotes and thankfulness sayings. 60 "When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living.

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She feels very sad because she left her and her son.

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Cute pomeranian puppy on the floor wallpaper

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Cute pomeranian puppy on the floor wallpaper, Cute pomeranian puppy on the floor 1920x1200 Animal HD desktop wallpaper #17134

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Maya Angelou is angry that her mom left her and her brother with her Grandparents

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Download this Vector Illustration Of A Angry Pitbull Dog Head vector illustration now. And search more of the web's best library of royalty-free vector art from iStock.

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Maya was scared to meet her Mom because she hasen´t seen her in while.

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Maya Angelou has lived a life so expansive and extraordinary that, even after seven autobiographies, she still has more stories to tell. Her latest book, Mom & Me & Mom, explores her relationship with her mother, Vivian Baxter. When Angelou was young, Baxter sent Angelou and her brother away to be raised by their grandmother; years later, she called them back to live with her again, the start of a sometimes fractious but eventually loving relationship.

Angelou says her familial relationships, particularly with her mother, have been crucial in defining her life. "I'm Maya Angelou - whatever that means to whomever it means - because my mother loved me, and my grandmother loved me, and my brother loved me," she says. "And they all told me I could do whatever I wanted to do."

Angelou has carried that tradition of strong familial bonds forward, saying, "I just really want to say that I dedicate this book to my son, who's the bravest, most courageous and most generous man I've ever known. My son, Guy Bailey Johnson."

Angelou joins NPR's Rachel Martin to talk about her reunion with her mother, a memorable mother-daughter confrontation and her career as a dancer.

Interview Highlights
On her early childhood, when she was primarily raised by her grandmother
"At one time in my life, from the time I was 7 until about 13, I didn't speak. I only spoke to my brother. The reason I didn't speak, I had been molested and I told the name of the molester to my brother, who told it to my family. The man was put in jail for one day and night, and released. And about three days later, the police came over to my mother's mother's house, and told her that the man had been found dead, and it seemed he had been kicked to death. They made that pronouncement in my earshot, and I thought my voice killed the man. And so it's better not to speak. So for six years I didn't speak.

"I was sent back to my father's mother who was raising me in Arkansas, and my grandmother said to me, 'Sister, Mama don't care what these people say that you must be an idiot or you must be a moron because you can't speak. Mama don't care. Mama know when you and the good Lord are ready, sister, you're gonna teach all over the world.'"

On her reunion with her birth mother, and why she called her 'Lady'
"Well, she didn't look like a mother to me. She didn't remind me of my grandmother, who we called Mama. She wore lipstick. And she had record players and she played music, loudly and danced, in the middle of the dining room floor. She said after a few weeks, 'You're going to have to address me,' and she asked, 'What would you like to call me?' I said, 'I'd like to call you Lady, because you're very beautiful and you sound like a lady.' She said, 'All right, I'll be Lady, so everyone must address me as Lady from now on.' So all sorts of people know her only as Lady.

"But after a few years she won me. She won me over because she was kind. And then she was also funny. So I liked all that. And she just won me over. And then I heard myself calling her Mother, and before I knew it I was calling her Mom."
On a confrontation with her mother after Angelou, then a high school student, had stayed out late with friends
"She hit me. She had a handful of keys about 20 keys on a chain, and I came through the door, before I could say anything she hit me with her fist. My stepfather came down from upstairs to see what was happening - she was still cursing like a drunk seaman. And then my brother came down and said, 'We're leaving here.' And then my mother asked, 'Where the hmmmmm do you think you're going?' He said, 'We're leaving this house. No one beats up my baby sister.' And she said, 'Please come in the kitchen. Let me speak to you. Please come. Please come.'

"She took a cloth off the rack and put it down on the floor, then she knelt on the cloth and she prayed to God to forgive her. And then she prayed to me. And she cried so piteously, she said, 'I, I, I just had come down the steps had gone to your room and you weren't in, and it's 2:30 or 3 o'clock in the morning, and I thought of what that man did to you in St. Louis, when you were a little girl, 7 years old, and I thought maybe someone was taking advantage of you, and I was about crazy. And then I came down the steps and just then you pushed open the door, with a big smile on your face,' and she said, 'I hit you before I thought of it. Please forgive me.' I forgave her immediately."
On her time as a streetcar conductor, and how her mother would drive her to work and then keep watch as she did her job

"I was the first black person to be on the streetcars of San Francisco, a conductorette. And my mother had asked me, 'What would you like to do this semester? You're ahead of your class, what would you like to do? You have to work.' So I said, 'I'd like to be a streetcar conductor.' She said, 'All right, go get the job.'

I told her, 'That's what you were - you were my great protection.'

"[My mother] drove me [to work] as long as I kept the job, which was a few months. And she'd drive right behind the streetcar until daylight. And at daylight, she'd honk her horn and blow me a kiss. [Angelou's mother carried a gun in that car, to protect Angelou.]

"I told her, 'That's what you were - you were my great protection.' She said, 'I was more than that. You were mine, too.' "
On her mother's energy and her own dancing career
"I can't describe her except that she gave off an energy. She was short - I mean she was 5 foot 5 inches, I'm 6 foot. She used to move a lot, like shaking, and I'd say, 'Why do you move like that?' She'd say, 'My motor is running. '

"I don't move that way, but I was a dancer for many years. I was a premier dancer for Porgy and Bess, the opera. And I taught dance some, in different places.

"I did work in a strip club, but I didn't strip - I danced. And I became very popular. And the band - the band was so used to playing for the strippers ... they just didn't even look anymore, they were so bored and blase. But then I came and I said, 'Do "Caravan," ' and I'd hit the floor and dance my skin off, almost. And I moved from a strip joint to a cabaret."
On when she started writing, and a poem she remembers from those days
"I liked to write from the time I was about 12 or 13. I loved to read. And since I only spoke to my brother, I would write down my thoughts. And I think I wrote some of the worst poetry west of the Rockies ...

A poet does not see the writing on the wall,
she sees the wall, that's all,
but for tomorrow goes her clarion call,
for others do not see the wall.

"Yessss, that's mine. My lord. [I wrote that] about 70 years ago ... amazing."
On what she does with her free time
"That's a wonderful question, because it would depend on what kind of day it is. If it's a good spring or summer day, I'd probably be in my garden, or I'd be maybe cooking something that catches my fancy. One thing that's nice to cook are whipped cream puffs. They're so easy, and yet people think they're so difficult, and they're so complimentary."
On whether she thinks about the word "legacy"
"I'm not ready to do that yet. Unless the creator's ready for me I'm not going anywhere. And instead of having 33 books or whatever they are, I might have 40."

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In A New Memoir, Maya Angelou Recalls How A 'Lady' Became 'Mom'

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Maya Angelou spent much of her childhood being raised by her grandmother in Arkansas, but as a young teenager, she returned to live with her mother, Vivian Baxter. Angelou's Mom & Me & Mom looks back on the long process of reconciliation with the woman who sent her away.

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When Maya was 3 her parents divorced and they left her with her and her brotherGrandparents.

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The famed writer discusses her childhood, her writing and the importance of family

Turning 75 this month, Maya Angelou has led many lives. She is best known as a writer, for her numerous books of poetry and her six poignant memoirs, including the masterful 1969 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. In February, she won a Grammy for the recorded reading of her most recent memoir, A Song Flung Up to Heaven. Her works have earned her more than 30 honorary degrees as well as nominations for a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize. She wrote "On the Pulse of Morning" for the 1993 swearing-in of President Bill Clinton, becoming only the second poet in U. S. history-Robert Frost was the first, for John F. Kennedy- invited to compose an inaugural poem.

Less well known are Angelou's other lives: as a singer; as a composer; as a dancer in Porgy and Bess; as an actor in the Obie-winning play The Blacks and in films such as Calypso Heat Wave and How to Make an American Quilt; as a civil rights worker with Martin Luther King, Jr.; as a journalist in Egypt and Ghana; as a writer for television and Hollywood; as director of the 1998 film Down in the Delta. Angelou is the Reynolds Professor of American Studies at North Carolina's WakeForestUniversity in Winston-Salem. She is constantly on the lecture circuit and a regular guest on talk shows; she recently created a line of greeting cards for Hallmark. And there is little sign of her slowing down.

But when we met recently in her art-filled home in Winston- Salem, it was her family, not her varied career, that she most wanted to discuss. Our conversation often returned to the loved ones who helped her triumph over the tragedies of her childhood and made her believe she could meet whatever challenge life threw in her path.
You've said that society's view of the black woman is such a threat to her well-being that she will die daily unless she determines how she sees herself. How do you see yourself?
Her grandmother Annie Henderson was one of the most important, a pious woman who ran a general store in Stamps, Arkansas. Angelou lived most of her childhood with her grandmother, whom she called "Momma." Angelou's sometimes-absentee mother, Vivian Baxter, had a steel will and several careers of her own. She was an inadvertent player in an early, formative trauma in Angelou's life. When Angelou was 8 and briefly living with Baxter in St. Louis, her mother's boyfriend raped Angelou. The man was arrested, convicted and released; soon after, he was found beaten to death. Believing she had caused the killing because she had told of the rape, Angelou refused to speak for several years; only her beloved older brother, Bailey, could coax her to talk. He remained a source of support throughout her life until his death more than a year ago. And there is Angelou's son, Guy Johnson, 57, author of Echoes of a Distant Summer and one other novel. He is, she says, her "monument in the world."
You have never been bored? How is that possible?
I just received a letter yesterday from the University of Milan. Aperson is doing a doctoral dissertation on my work. It's called Sapienza, which means wisdom. 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.

Oh God, if I were bored, now that would interest me. I'd think, my God, how did that happen and what's going on? I'd be caught up in it. Are you kidding? Bored?

I realized when I was about 20 that I would die. It frightened me so. I mean, I had heard about it, had been told and all that, but that I . . . ? [She points at herself and raises her brows as if in disbelief.] It so terrified me that I doublelocked the doors; I made certain that the windows were double- locked-trying to keep death out-and finally I admitted that there was nothing I could do about it. Once I really came to that conclusion, I started enjoying life, and I enjoy it very much.

Another occurrence took place at about the same time- maybe about a year later-and the two occurrences liberated me forever.

I had two jobs. I was raising my son. We had a tiny little place to live. My mother had a 14-room house and someone to look after things. She owned a hotel, lots of diamonds. I wouldn't accept anything from her. But once a month she'd cook for me. And I would go to her house and she'd be dressed beautifully.

One day after we'd had lunch, she had to go somewhere. She put on silver-fox furs-this was when the head of one fox would seem to bite into the head of the other-and she would wear them with the tails in front; she would turn it around with the furs arching back. We were halfway down the hill and she said, "Baby"-and she was small; she was 5- feet-4 1/2 and I'm 6 foot-"You know something? I think you're the greatest woman I've ever met." We stopped. I looked down at this pretty little woman made up so perfectly, diamonds in her ears. She said, "Mary McLeod Bethune, Eleanor Roosevelt, my mother and you-you are the greatest." It still brings me to te-. [Her eyes tear up.]

We walked down to the bottom of the hill. She crossed the street to the right to get into her car. I continued across the street and waited for the streetcar. And I got onto the streetcar and I walked to the back. I shall never forget it. I remember the wooden planks of the streetcar. The way the light came through the window. And I thought, suppose she's right? She's very intelligent, and she's too mean to lie. Suppose I really am somebody?
One of your large thoughts must have been about planning to have a diverse life and career. How do you move so easily from one thing to another?
Those two incidents liberated me to think large thoughts, whether I could comprehend them or not [she laughs], but to think. . . .

I have a theory that nobody understands talent any more than we understand electricity. So I think we've done a real disservice to young people by telling them, "Oh, you be careful. You'll be a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none." It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I think you can be a jack-of-all-trades and a mistress-of-all-trades. If you study it, and you put reasonable intelligence and reasonable energy, reasonable electricity to it, you can do that. You may not become Max Roach on the drums. But you can learn the drums. I've long felt that way about things. If I'm asked, "Can you do this?" I think, if I don't do it, it'll be ten years before another black woman is asked to do it. And I say, yes, yes, when do you want it?

My mom, you know, was a seaman. At one point, I was in Los Angeles. I called her in San Francisco and said, I want to see you, I'm going to New York and I don't know when I'll be back, so let's meet mid-state. She said, "Oh, baby, I wanted to see you, too, because I'm going to sea." I said, going to see what? She said, "I'm going to become a seaman." I said, Mother, really, come on. She said, "No, they told me they wouldn't let women in their union. I told them, 'You wanna bet?' I put my foot in that door up to my hip so women of every color will get in that union, get aboard a ship and go to sea." She retired in 1980, and Asian, white and black women gave a party for her. They called her the mother of the sea.
Do you resent the fact that your mother wasn't there for much of your childhood?
So, yes, we cripple our children, we cripple each other with those designations that if you're a brick mason you shouldn't love the ballet. Who made that rule? You ever see a person lay bricks? [She moves her hands in a precise bricklaying manner.] Because of the eye and the hands, of course he or she would like to see ballet. It is that precise, that established, that organized, that sort of development from the bottom to the top.

Oh, yes. Yes. I was an abandoned child as far as I was concerned, and Bailey also. We didn't hear from her- we heard maybe twice in seven years or something. And then I realized that she was funny and loving and that there are certainly two different kinds of parents. There is the person who can be a great parent of small children. They dress the children in these sweet little things with bows in their hair and beads on their shoestrings and nice, lovely little socks. But when those same children get to be 14 or 15, the parents don't know what to say to them as they grow breasts and testosterone hits the boy.

Well, my mom was a terrible parent of young children. And thank God-I thank God every time I think of it-I was sent to my paternal grandmother. Ah, but my mother was a great parent of a young adult. When she found out I was pregnant, she said, "All right. Run me a bath, please." Well, in my family, that's really a very nice thing for somebody to ask you to do. Maybe two or three times in my life she had asked me to run her a bath. So I ran her a bath and then she invited me in the bathroom. My mother sat down in the bathtub. She asked me, "Do you love the boy?" I said no. "Does he love you?" I said no. "Well, there's no point in ruining three lives. We're going to have us a baby."

And she delivered Guy-because she was a nurse also. She took me to the hospital. It was during one of the Jewish holidays, and my doctor wasn't there. My mother went in, told the nurses who she was, she washed up, they took me into the delivery room. She got up on the table on her knees with me and put her shoulder against my knee and took my hand, and every time a pain would come she'd tell a joke. I would laugh and laugh [she laughs uproariously] and bear down. And she said, "Here he comes, here he comes." And she put her hand on him first, my son.
It seems your mother and Bailey always came to your rescue. Were they more vigilant, do you think, because you didn't speak for so long?
So throughout her life she liberated me. Liberated me constantly. Respected me, respected what I tried to do, believed in me. I'd go out in San Francisco-I'd be visiting her, I was living in Los Angeles-and stay really late at some afterhours joint. Mother knew all of them and knew all the bartenders. And I'd be having a drink and laughing, and the bartender would say on the phone, "Yeah, Mama, yeah she's here." She'd say to me: "Baby, it's your mother. Come home. Let the streets know you have somewhere to go."
What went through your mind during the years you were mute?
All those years ago I'd been a mute, and my mother and my brother knew that in times of strife and extreme stress, I was likely to retreat to mutism. Mutism is so addictive. And I don't think its powers ever go away. It's as if it's just behind my view, just behind my right shoulder or my left shoulder. If I move quickly, it moves, so I can't see it. But it's always there saying, "You can always come back to me. You have nothing to do-just stop talking." So, when I've been in stress, my mother or my brother, or both sometimes, would come wherever I was, New York, California, anywhere, and say, "Hello, hello, talk to me. Come on, let's go. We'll have a game of Scrabble or pinochle and let's talk. Tell me a story." Because they were astute enough to recognize the power of mutism, I finally was astute enough to recognize the power of their love.

Oh, yes, I memorized poetry. I would test myself, memorizing a conversation that went by when I wasn't in it. I memorized 60 Shakespearean sonnets. And some of the things I memorized, I'd never heard them spoken, so I memorized them according to the cadence that I heard in my head. I loved Edgar Allan Poe and I memorized everything I could find. And I loved Paul Laurence Dunbar-still do-so I would memorize 75 poems. It was like putting a CD on. If I wanted to, I'd just run through my memory and think, that's one I want to hear.
You lived with your grandmother during your silent years. How did she respond?
So I believe that my brain reconstructed itself during those years. I believe that the areas in the brain which provide and promote physical speech had nothing to do. I believe that the synapses of the brain, instead of just going from A to B, since B wasn't receptive, the synapses went from Ato R. You see what I mean? And so, I've been able to develop a memory quite unusual, which has allowed me to learn languages, really quite a few. I seem to be able to direct the brain; I can say, do that. I say, remember this, remember that. And it's caught! [She snaps her fingers as if to emphasize "caught."]
If your mother liberated you to think big, what gifts did your grandmother give you?
She said, "Sister, Momma don't care what these people say, that you must be an idiot, a moron, 'cause you can't talk. Momma don't care. Momma know that when you and the good Lord get ready, you gon' be a teacher."

She gave me so many gifts. Confidence that I was loved. She taught me not to lie to myself or anyone else and not to boast. She taught me to admit that, to me, the emperor has no clothes. He may be dressed in the finery of the ages to everybody else, but if I don't see it, to admit that I don't see it. Because of her, I think, I have remained a very simple woman. What you see is all there is. I have no subterfuge. And she taught me not to complain.

My grandmother had one thing that she would do for me about twice a year. Shall I tell you? [She laughs loudly.] Momma would see a whiner, a complainer come down the hill. And she would call me in. She'd say, "Sister, Sister, come out here." I'd go and look up the hill and a complainer was trudging. And the man or woman would come into the store, and my grandmother would ask, "How you feel today?"

"Ah, Sister Henderson, I tell you I just hate the winter. It makes my face crack and my shins burn."
Did you write during your childhood?
And Momma'd just say, "Uh-huh," and then look at me. And as soon as the person would leave, my grandmother would say, "Sister, come here." I'd stand right in front of her. She'd say, "There are people all over the world who went to sleep last night who did not wake again. Their beds have become their cooling boards, their blankets have become their winding sheets. They would give anything for just five minutes of what she was complaining about."
I read that you wrote the inaugural poem, "On the Pulse of Morning," in a hotel room. Were you on the road when you composed it?
Well, I've always written. There's a journal which I kept from about 9 years old. The man who gave it to me lived across the street from the store and kept it when my grandmother's papers were destroyed. I'd written some essays. I loved poetry, still do. But I really, really loved it then. I would write some-of course it was terrible-but I'd always written something down.
Where does writing rank in your accomplishments?
I keep a hotel room here in Winston when I'm writing. I take a room for about a month. And I try to be in the room by 6 a.m., so I get up, make coffee and keep a thermos and I go out to the hotel. I would have had everything removed from the room, wall hangings and all that stuff. It's just a bed, a table and a chair, Roget's Thesaurus, a dictionary, a bottle of sherry, a yellow pad and pens, and I go to work. And I work 'til about twelve or one; one if it's going well, twelve if it isn't. Then I come home and pretend to operate in the familiar, you know?

I'm happy to be a writer, of prose, poetry, every kind of writing. Every person in the world who isn't a recluse, hermit or mute uses words. I know of no other art form that we always use. So the writer has to take the most used, most familiar objects-nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs-ball them together and make them bounce, turn them a certain way and make people get into a romantic mood; and another way, into a bellicose mood. I'm most happy to be a writer.

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Turning 75 this month, Maya Angelou has led many lives. She is best known as a writer, for her numerous books of poetry and her six poignant memoirs, including the masterful 1969 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. In February, she won a Grammy for the recorded reading of her most recent memoir, A Song Flung Up to Heaven.