by Maya Angelou (2008) ★★★☆☆ First read in June 2025 ## Quotes I liked From the introduction - "I gave birth to only one child, a son, but I have thousands of daughters." - "You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them." - "Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud." - "Do not complain. Make every effort to change the things you do not like." - "If you can not make a change, change the way you have been thinking." - "Never whine. Whining lets a brute know that a victim is in the neighbourhood." ONE "Home is that youthful region where a child is the only real living inhabitant. (...) Geography, as such, has little meaning to the child observer. If one grows up in the Southwest, the desert and open skies are natural. New York, with the elevators and subway rumble and millions of people, and Southeast Florida with its palm trees and sun and beaches, are to the children of those regions the way the outer world is, has been, and will always be. Since the child cannot control that environment. she has to find her own place, a region where only she lives and no one else can enter." "I am convinced that most people do not grow up. (...) We may act sophisticated and worldly but I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find _home_, a place where we belong and mayBe the only place we really do." TWO - she values connected altruism as opposed to effective altruism "There are those who would like to see themselves as philanthropists. They often are represented by committtees and delegations. They are disconnected from the recipients of their generosity. Not me. Rather I like to think of myself as charitable. "I seem to have more than I need and you seem to have less than you need. I would like to share my excess with you." Fine if my excess is tangible, money, goods, and fine if it is not, for I learned that to be charitable with gestures and words can bring enormous joy and repair injured feelings." "That day I learned I could be a giver by simply smiling to another. The ensuing years have taught me that a kind word, a vote of support is a charitable gift. " THREE "The birth of my son caused me to develop enough courage to invent my own life." FOUR "She was so proud of me, my mother. So I became proud of me." picture EIGHT - Violence "Violence" - pg 47 through to 49 Talking about how rape is an act of SEXUAL violence, not just violence stemming from a need to feel powerful. Her description about how premeditated rape looks like for the rapist fits perfectly with the description of a real rapist from [["If You Meet The Buddha On The Road, Kill Him"]] - where a patient in a psych hospital was describing a courting episode from his past, that we would later find out was about a nine year old girl. - see the quote. NINE "My mother stopped me and said: "Baby, I've been thinking and now I am sure. You are the greatest woman I've ever met"."