The Life Lessons Maya Angelou Taught Oprah

BUY THE BOOK! 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings https://amzn.to/3RCXjbq' by Maya Angelou In a special episode of The Oprah Podcast Oprah looks back on some of the most profound lessons she learned and has continued to share from one of her greatest mentors - mother-sister-friend, Dr. Maya Angelou. It’s been 12 years since Maya Angelou passed, however Oprah says she taught her more than any other single human being and those lessons continue to help guide her and so many people in their lives. A victim of severe trauma as a child, Maya Angelou was raised by her grandmother and spent five years of her childhood as a mute. She would go on to become one of the world's most respected poets and authors writing more than 30 books. Her seminal autobiography series began with I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings considered one of the best non-fiction books of all time. Oprah revisits the moment she read that book and how it changed her life. Oprah also goes back in time to recall the great conversations and words of wisdom she gained from Maya Angelou including, “When you know better, you do better,” “When someone tells you who they are, believe them,” “I come as one, but stand as 10,000” and many, many others we can all benefit from. Oprah also shares with listeners a beautiful poem called “Continue” https://youtube.com/shorts/cGHM1vEphYgMaya Angelou personally wrote for Oprah for her 50th birthday.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Oprah Winfrey?

  I've said this many times before that my greatest lessons have been articulated by you. I had to learn them myself, but they were articulated by you.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  What you can do is approve of yourself for living.

• 0:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Approve of yourself.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  For being alive.

• 0:17Oprah Winfrey?

  For being alive.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  My belief is you never can leave home. You take it with you.

• 0:22Oprah Winfrey?

  Everywhere.

• 0:22Speaker 01

  Everywhere you go. So my past is my present.

• 0:27Oprah Winfrey?

  And everything that's happened in your past is what makes you who you are right this moment. One of the most important lessons I've ever learned from you. And that is, when people show you who they are, believe them.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely.

• 0:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, you know, when you know better, you do better.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  That's the ticket.

• 0:43Oprah Winfrey?

  That's the ticket. I recited that to myself many times. I come as one, but I stand as 10,000.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  And that's it, you girl.

• 0:51Oprah Winfrey?

  The force of that.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 0:52Oprah Winfrey?

  The force of that.

• 0:53Speaker 01

  Yes, ma'am.

• 0:57Oprah Winfrey?

  A happy hello to you. I thank you for taking the time to be with me here on the Oprah Podcast. One of my greatest mentors, mother, sister, friend in my life, Dr. Maya Angelou, passed 12 years ago. And I know you all feel this sometimes, too, for people who are close to you. It's still hard to believe it's been that long. Maya taught me more, I believe, than any other single human being that I knew on the planet. I learned so many life lessons from her. Things that she actually said, but also how she lived and moved through the world. I think she is one of the reasons why I have embraced aging with such enthusiasm.

• 1:41Oprah Winfrey?

  Because she would say to me, "Girl, I'm telling you, the 80s are hot." So I'm still waiting to experience that.

• 1:52Oprah Winfrey?

  I learned so many lessons from her. I could, could, could write a book about it. And I know she had the same impact on so many of you. I first met her in my early 20s. I was working in Baltimore. And I had convinced my station news director that she was worthy of being on the evening news. They didn't even know who she was. She was speaking at Morgan State University. And I asked them if I could go and cover her and create a story from it. And I met her backstage. And I said, "Miss Angelou, if you would just give me five minutes of your time, five minutes of your time,

• 2:34Oprah Winfrey?

  I would really appreciate it for this interview." And she agreed. And I was, held my hand out. I had a little Timex watch. And I watched that clock to make sure I didn't go one second over the five minutes that she gave me. And when we were done, she turned to me and she said, "Who are you, girl?" And I was forever taken by her. Our bond was immediate. It was profound. And I would go on to interview her countless times throughout the years. And when all of the craziness

• 3:16Oprah Winfrey?

  and disruption of life sometimes would creep in, I would call her. And I often go back to the lessons I learned from Maya Angelou to remind myself to get centered in who I really am. And many times, when things still occur, I think, "Oh, what would Maya do? What would Maya be doing in this time?" It's a blessing to me that I have so many of those conversations on camera. So for this podcast, I want to share some of those great lessons with you. Because my intention right now is to do what Maya said in her poem to grandmother. She said, "When you learn, teach. When you get, give."

• 4:00Oprah Winfrey?

  So my intention is to share the wisdom I've learned over the years to offer you a breathing space, a thoughtful place beneath all the noise of the world, starting with Maya's belief in the power of words. I got this lesson many times from her.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Words are things, I'm convinced.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  You must be careful about the words you use. Are the words you allowed to be used in your house? In the Old Testament, we are told in Genesis that "in the beginning was the word, and the word was God, and the word was with God." That's in Genesis. Words are things. You must be careful. Careful about calling people out of their names, using racial pejoratives and sexual pejorities and all that ignorance. Don't do that.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Someday, we'll be able to measure the power of words. I think they are things. I think they get on the walls. They get in your wallpaper. They get in your rugs, in your upholstery, in your clothes, and finally into you. When I was three and my brother five,

• 5:18Speaker 01

  my mother and father separated, divorced, and neither of them wanted me and my brother.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  But my grandmother, my father's mother, said, "Send them to me." And so they sent us, without adult supervision, on a train with tags on our arms,

• 5:37Speaker 01

  saying, "These children are to be given to Mrs. Annie Henderson, my grandma." We actually arrived in the town. Dining car waiters and pullman car porters took us off trains, put us on other trains. We really arrived in this village about the size of a studio, the Stamp Sock and so on.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  My grandmother owned the only black-owned store in the little village in which we lived. She was an amazing woman. She lent money to the white businessmen in the town during the Depression. So she taught me so much. And I look like her. And I sound like her. When I was seven,

• 6:30Speaker 01

  we were picked up and taken from my grandmother to my mother's people in St. Louis.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  My mother's people were foreign to me. All of her brothers were highfalutin'. You know, were so this and that.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  My brother Bailey and I tried to learn and become city kids. But my mother's boyfriend raped me when I was seven.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  I told Bailey the name of the rapist. I wouldn't tell the adults. But I told Bailey. I said, "I can't tell you because he said he will kill you." He was nine years old. He said, "I won't let him." So I told him, of course, I believed anything. He was my black kingdom come, Bailey. So he told the family. The man was put in jail for one day and night and released. And two huge white policemen came into my mother's mother's house.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Bailey and I were on the floor playing a game

• 8:01Speaker 01

  in her parlor. These huge policemen came in navy blue serge suits. And blue serge was about half an inch thick in their 30s, with big brass buttons. They looked like giants.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  And they said, "The man has been found dead, and it seems he was kicked to death."

• 8:25Speaker 01

  I thought my voice had killed him.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  That was my seven-year-old logic.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  So I stopped talking.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  My mother's family and my mother did their best to woo me away from my mutism. But they didn't know what I knew. My voice could kill.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  So I stopped.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  And after a while, I think they just really got tired of the presence of this

• 9:04Speaker 01

  mad and sullen and silent child.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  So they sent me back to my grandma,

• 9:12Speaker 01

  to Mama.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  The best thing that could have happened.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  My grandmother, she was an amazing woman. She gave me a little tablet, a five-cent tablet. And she took a pocket knife and cut a groove in a number-two pencil and put a string in that groove. And then the other string, she tied to the sparrow of the tablet. And I kept that on my waistband. So if anybody asked me, you know, what I thought, I would write it. Mrs. Flowers was a black lady in stamps in my neighborhood. And she knew I didn't speak. So she took me to the black school. There was a library,

• 10:09Speaker 01

  about one-tenth the size of my library in my home. But it seemed to me there were millions of books. And she said, "I want you to read from A to C-L and make notes." I was eight years old. I read every book. I read everything. I don't say I understood that much, but I read. And I found that I loved poetry. I loved it, all of it. Just what that which I understood and that which I didn't. She would come up the hill from the white school. I don't know how she had that contact.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  But she'd come up with books for me to read. And I loved them. I've read Paul Naston by James Reuben Johnson, Count P. Cullen. I memorized. I read Edgar Allan Poe. I loved Poe so much, I called him "Eep" to myself. I read Shakespeare. And at one time, I memorized like 50 sonnets or something. But I read one sonnet which made me think, Shakespeare may be a black girl in the South who has been molested. How could he know, "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes

• 11:35Speaker 01

  I all alone bemoan my outcast state and trouble a deaf heaven with my bootless cries and look upon myself and curse my fate"? Shakespeare knew what it was like to be raped and scorned, you see. So of course, I thought he was a black girl, barefoot in the South. It spoke to me. About four years after Mrs. Flowers started me to read, and really to read, I was clever enough. Mrs. Flowers invited me to her house.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  And she used to make tea cookies and lemonade. And she'd give me that to drink. And she'd talk about poetry. And she'd read to me with this illiterate voice. And she said, "Maya, you do not like poetry." I got my tablet. I said, "Yes, ma'am." She wouldn't even look at my tablet. And she pointed her finger at me. And really, black people don't like to be pointed at. And she was so elegant, she knew better. She just shook her finger in my face. I ran out of her house. I ran back to my grandmother. And Mrs. Flowers came back there

• 13:00Speaker 01

  and pointed her finger at me in front of Mama. She said, "You'll never love it until you speak it, until you feel it come across your tongue, over your teeth, through your lips. You will never love poetry, never." And she harassed me. She kept following me around and around for months. And finally, I went under the house where the chickens go. Dirty is so soft because they scratch under there. I went under that house. And I tried to recite a poem. And I found I had left my voice. My voice hadn't left me.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  So I started talking again. And I'm not stopped.

• 13:54Oprah Winfrey?

  No.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  I thank Mrs. Flowers.

• 13:59Oprah Winfrey?

  And aren't we glad she didn't stop? Mm-hmm. Well, Maya Angelou is one of the world's greatest poets and authors. And she wrote more than 30 books over the course of her life. And her seminal autobiography series began with, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." It's considered one of the best nonfiction books of all time. It's been banned for years. I've been a student of that book since I read that very first page where she says, "What you looking at me for? Didn't come to stay, only came to say, 'Happy Easter Day.'" Well, I was just floored by that sentence

• 14:43Oprah Winfrey?

  because I grew up in the church, just like Maya grew up in the church, raised by her grandmother. I was raised by my grandmother. And it was the first time that I'd read a book, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", where a young girl's story was a mirror for my own. And I felt so validated by her story. So when you wrote "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", was that a cleansing and a proclaiming of yourself to the world?

• 15:19Speaker 01

  I don't think so. I've heard that that's what it was supposed to be.

• 15:22Oprah Winfrey?

  Really?

• 15:22Speaker 01

  You know, that it was supposed to be in its own way cathartic and that. I don't know about that. I didn't feel that I had doffed a particular mortal coil, you know. I felt I had tried to write the truth and write it eloquently. But I don't know. You know, I never agreed with Thomas Wolfe's statement that you can't go home again. My belief is you never can leave home. You take it with you.

• 15:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Everywhere.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  Everywhere you go. So my past is my present.

• 15:58Oprah Winfrey?

  And everything that's happened in your past is what makes you who you are at this moment.

• 16:02Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 16:03Oprah Winfrey?

  When you wrote that, did you know that it would do for me and everybody else who's ever read it, particularly young black girls? I opened that book. First of all, when you opened the first page, I grew up in the church, raised by my grandmother, doing speeches. When you opened the first page and the first words are, "What you looking at me for? Didn't come to stay, only came to say, 'Happy Easter Day.'" When I looked, I thought, there is a world out there that's about me? Somebody knows about this?

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:34Oprah Winfrey?

  It was what it did to me.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 16:37Oprah Winfrey?

  It was amazing, just amazing. It changed my life. Because I think that was the first piece of black literature I read. And after that, I couldn't read enough.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:46Oprah Winfrey?

  I couldn't get enough.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  I know. That's why I send you the books by there.

• 16:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, from that wonderful bookstore in Denver.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Also, and have them have some books.

• 16:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Letter down, you do, yes. Well, when you wrote it, I want to know, hear from your mouth, why you know the caged bird sings.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  Well, there are two, or maybe 2,000, reasons. The caged bird sings because it must. It must or die. Maybe it must and die. I don't know. But it must sing. Sometimes the melody arrived at in the cage is much more fetching, much more appealing, much more profound, much more poignant than the melody arrived at by the bird who's on the loose. The caged bird sings with a fearful trill. Its song is heard on the distant hill.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  For the caged bird sings of freedom. Freedom. Freedom, let me out of here. Let me out of here. And so there's something universal about that song, since all of us are caged in some way or another. And so people can hear it and say, "Oh, yes, oh, Lord, let that bird out." You know, "At least I feel for the bird."

• 18:16Oprah Winfrey?

  I ran across, in my senior memory book not too long ago, my goal, in the senior memory book, it says, "Take a good, long look at yourself." And I ran across something that I had written. It said, "I want to be a genuine, female woman, strong and confident in myself." I want to come back and talk about what that means because so often on the show, we have psychologists every day who say, "You need to learn to love yourself."

• 18:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:43Oprah Winfrey?

  It's so hard when people are filled with self-loathing.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Yes, and doubt.

• 18:48Oprah Winfrey?

  And doubt.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  Sometimes it isn't even strong enough to be loathing, which can be turned around. It's just doubt. It's indecision. It's confusion. Quite often, it's just, they can't even ask the question, so it's very hard to get an answer.

• 19:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, you know, all the time, we talk about loving ourselves. What does that mean?

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Well... You can't love yourself all the time. But what you can do is approve of yourself for living.

• 19:16Oprah Winfrey?

  Approve of yourself.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  For being alive.

• 19:19Oprah Winfrey?

  For being alive.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  You know, you can say, well, I'm alive and I thank God for that. And so, I mean, I did something very dumb yesterday and I don't like that. Or I'm not seeing as profoundly or acting as nobly. And that's a really important word.

• 19:37Oprah Winfrey?

  It is.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  It is, yeah. I'm not acting as nobly as I know I could or should or must. But I do approve of myself for being alive. Now you see, as long as you do that, you leave yourself room to grow.

• 19:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, wow. It's just, I can't even tell you what it's like. Just, I remember that being her little garden room and sitting in that room and being in awe of her. Every time I was around her, I always felt like I was like 11 years old again. Or seven years old sometimes. We spent many nights on the phone. I looked to her for words of inspiration and strength for most of my life. I mean, during the early years of the Oprah Winfrey Show, I was in the tabloids all the time, being exploited. So many negative stories that were all made up and lies. And she was always, always, always consistently there.

• 20:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Sometimes I would call her and I'd say, can you help me figure out what I'm supposed to do? And she said, babe, let me go pray on it. I don't want to just give an answer straight away. Let me check in with the Lord and see what the Lord has to say. And I will get back to you. Well, we once threw a dinner and pajama party at her house with readers whose lives had been changed by her work. And I remember we were so moved talking with Maya. We all just broke down crying at one point. And after dessert, we decided to let the cameras film just the two of us chatting in bed in our PJs. And we discussed, again, many of life's lessons,

• 21:22Oprah Winfrey?

  including those she learned from her own mother, Vivian Baxter, as well as one of my favorites. Take a look. Here we be in Maya Angelou's bedroom. The big brass bed. Yeah. Talking about life lessons, I've said this many times before, that my greatest, some of my greatest lessons have been articulated by you. I had to learn them myself, but they were articulated by you.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Before we get into that, I must say, to have you in my bedroom, where we are from time to time, as my daughter, is one of the sweetest things. If I could have had birthed girls, I would have not had the wisdom or the creativity to make you. I'd have liked to, but didn't. But when I think of you and think of how much I want to tell you, I wish I could just take your ear and go

• 22:33Speaker 01

  and blow into your ear everything I know, everything I've been through.

• 22:38Oprah Winfrey?

  I wish you could too.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  It's pretty wonderful to have a chance to talk to you about courage, about laughter.

• 22:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Now, okay, courage, that's one. You can't do anything without that. The other most important lesson. Well, it's hard for me to number them, but let's say one of the most important lessons I ever learned from you. And I still am, you know, I think I know the lesson and then I'll walk into a situation and think that's that same lesson. And that is, when people show you who they are, believe them.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. A person says to you, I'm selfish, or I'm mean, or I am unkind.

• 23:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Or I'm crazy.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Or I'm crazy. Believe them. They know themselves much better than you do. But no, more often than not, those of us who don't trust life say, don't say a thing like that. You're not really crazy. You're not really unkind. You're not really mean. And as soon as you say that, the person

• 23:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Let you know.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  And shows you, I told you. I told you I was unkind. So now why are you angry?

• 23:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Beware of people who are at your feet.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  When the winds of fortune change, they will be at your throat. So whenever you see them at your feet, stop them right there and say, stop that. I'm not influenced. I'm not, you do not please me. Oh, you're the greatest. I adore you. No, don't give me that. No, adore God. Adore somebody. Don't adore me. Don't do that. I'm a human being, just like you, out here doing my best.

• 24:26Oprah Winfrey?

  This is one you told me today I thought was brilliant. We just at the breakfast table. Loyalty to things is addiction. Yeah. Loyalty to God is liberating. Yeah. That, that will live with me forever. I knew that, you know. If someone, I know that is true. I tried to live that, but I hadn't articulated it so well.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  But there's almost nothing I tell you that you don't say, right?

• 24:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  I mean, you already know it.

• 24:54Oprah Winfrey?

  I say that, then I go write it down.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Yes, that's true.

• 24:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Because I want to remember it that particular way.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  But what I mean is, you already know it inside yourself.

• 25:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Inside myself, yeah.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  It's just that I put it into words.

• 25:07Oprah Winfrey?

  You talk a lot about Vivian Baxter and Heart of a Woman. What do you think are the greatest lessons she gave to you?

• 25:15Speaker 01

  One of the greatest was when I was 17. I left her house. She said, all right, you leave this house. But know when you walk over my front steps, you've been raised. Don't let anybody raise you. Your grandmother, your uncle and I have taught you the difference between right and wrong. Now she said, every relationship you have, whether work or romance or in any kind of career, you will have to make compromises. That's all right, but don't let anybody raise you.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  I took that to mean that I was a woman. And that's what she gave me, the idea that I was a woman.

• 26:08Oprah Winfrey?

  Who had already been raised. A woman who'd already been raised. Well, living much of my life in, certainly my adult life in the public eye, opened me up to all kinds of criticism. It was not like even today, because today the criticism is, you know, a millionfold because of social media for everybody. But I think one of the hardest things I had to get through was, there was a period of time where I'd been betrayed by people I thought I could trust. And then any of you who've ever been through that, you know, I know, is there any worse feeling in any kind of relationship

• 26:53Oprah Winfrey?

  than to be betrayed by someone you trust? And one time, I remember being so hurt that I was in the bathroom and I was sitting on the toilet seat, put the toilet seat down. And there was a house full of people when I had first heard about this betrayal. And I was like crying, crying, crying. That kind of crying on the phone with Maya about something that someone had said and therefore had gotten published in a tabloid that wasn't true. And I was calling her, expecting her to be sympathetic and say, it'll be all right and don't worry about it.

• 27:36Oprah Winfrey?

  And instead she said, stop it, stop it. I want you to stop it. And I was like, what, what? What do you want me to stop? And she says, I want you to stop right now and say, thank you. And I said, but did you hear what I said? And she said, yes, I heard what you said. She said, but say, thank you right now. Say, thank you. Thank you. So I mumble, "Thank you." She goes, "I want to hear it louder." "Thank you." I go, "Thank you." She said, "You're not thanking me. You're thanking God because God has put a rainbow in this cloud that you right now think is a storm.

• 28:21Oprah Winfrey?

  There's a rainbow waiting in the cloud for you on the other side." And that calmed me and was life-changing for me. So whenever something hits, I say,

• 28:35Oprah Winfrey?

  "Thank you." Because I know God has put a rainbow in the clouds and something better is on the other side.

• 28:44Oprah Winfrey?

  I have to say, she didn't always tell me, most often didn't tell me what I wanted to hear, but was one of those people who was always available to tell me what I needed to hear. I feel like I'm one of the most blessed people on earth for so many reasons. But one of the best gifts I ever received that was just, I think more than a gift, was a pleasure and joy and a blessing, all wrapped in one, was a handwritten book. See, this is her actual handwriting. Maya Angelou wrote to me, beginning April 6 of 1990. And they were just thoughts that Maya had that she wanted to share with me. It really is a treasure.

• 29:30Oprah Winfrey?

  And they're lessons that I had learned or things that you had said to me over the years. And I think the best lesson I ever learned, when people ask the question, "What is the thing you've learned the most out of life?" Is a lesson, do you know which one it is?

• 29:44Speaker 01

  That you're not in it.

• 29:45Oprah Winfrey?

  You're not in it.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 29:47Oprah Winfrey?

  You're not in it.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Of course, I remember it. And I remember also telling you that a number of times.

• 29:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Because no lesson is learned immediately.

• 29:58Oprah Winfrey?

  It took me a long time to get it, didn't it?

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you got it, but you get it on so many levels. You see, there's a phrase used in West Africa, "deep talk," meaning that you, anybody will understand on a certain level. People who are interested in really understanding more, take that statement or that lesson a little deeper. Somebody else will take it even deeper. And the West Africans suggest you can never understand completely. Even at 80, as far down as you take that aphorism or as far down as you take the adage or the advice, you could still go deeper if you'd live long enough. So when I told you the first time you called and some newspaper.

• 30:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Tabloid.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Tabloid had just vilified you or Stedman or both. And you were really as close to losing it. You were so hurt by the erroneous and ridiculous and cruel accusations that you were just hardly getting your breath. And I said, "You're not in that." And you said, "Yes, but you see, this is what they said." And I said, "Yes, but you are not in it."

• 31:19Speaker 01

  "Yes, but..." And then I heard you start to realize what I was saying, that that has nothing to do with you. That has all and everything to do with the Perpetuator.

• 31:32Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  And he or she or they are going to get their living out of you getting your dying. And so obviously, you can't give in to that because you are not in it.

• 31:46Oprah Winfrey?

  And you know, it happens to people who are in every walk of life, not just people who spend their lives like I do on television every day, but I hear little girls who are going to school and people are talking about them in class or when people are making fun of you or your neighbors. We did this show not too long ago where there's a clique in the neighborhood or a clique in the office. But the lesson is always the same. You're not in it.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  It's true. They would have done that without you. This is what you have to realize. And this is true of the rape victim. You see, it runs that understanding is as broad as life is. So that the rape victim so often thinks that she is in it or he is in it. That same rapist would have done somebody else.

• 32:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Another one of the things you've taught me is that, I love that phrase that you say, that people will try to peck you to death like ducks.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Not just out, most people don't have the courage to just come out and.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  And kill you.

• 32:48Oprah Winfrey?

  And kill you.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 32:49Oprah Winfrey?

  They will take a little piece of your knee.

• 32:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, they'll take the flange off your nostril and a bit of the lobe of your ear, hoping that you didn't even notice it, you see? And that's called "blow, bite, and blow." That means that you blow on something until it becomes anesthetized, quickly bite and then blow again. And the person doesn't even know he's been bitten. You see, West Africans call that "blow, bite, and blow." So people do that. And that's my son's phrase, "pecked to death by ducks."

• 33:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Pecked to death by ducks.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  By ducks.

• 33:25Oprah Winfrey?

  Have people tried to do that to you?

• 33:26Speaker 01

  Oh, many times.

• 33:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Many times.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  I mean, it hasn't stopped. I'm sure that it's happened today.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  But the thing is, I encourage you.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  And I have two other people who I consider daughters. And the Black Rose in San Francisco and a girl, a woman in West Africa, Arba. If I could have had daughters, you three would have been the three I'd have chosen.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  My encouragement is to stop it as soon as it happens, as soon as you hear it. As soon as you sense, "This person wants me dead." The person just walks in and says, "Oh, you're putting on weight, huh?" You say, "Stop it." "Not me, you don't." "Not me, Jack."

• 34:20Oprah Winfrey?

  Not me.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  "Not me, out." Get out. Now, I have lost or left a lot of men who, you know, just in public would say something like, "Well, Maya, I don't know why she wore that dress. This is not the dress that looks good on her." I said, "That's the end." "That's it." So the man then, when we get home, because I start packing his clothes, he says, "You take everything to the max." I say, "Yes, because I know that once you take that flange off my nostril, pull one patch out of my hair, and I don't say anything, the next thing, you'll have me bald." "Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no."

• 35:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, that just happened to me the other day. I was someplace, somebody was asking me to do something. This woman, I didn't even know her. And she says, "Oh, but you know me." And I said, "But no, I don't really, I don't, I'm not sure." She says, "But I knew you when. I knew you when you were barefoot and you were walking back some..." And I was thinking, "Oh, she wants me."

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 35:19Oprah Winfrey?

  She wants me dead.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 35:20Oprah Winfrey?

  She wants me dead.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  This is it.

• 35:22Oprah Winfrey?

  But I didn't have the courage to do that. I didn't have the courage to say, "Stop it."

• 35:25Speaker 01

  You must. You do them a favor, not only yourself. You do them the favor of not having to do that again to somebody who will actually knock their heads off. You understand?

• 35:37Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, I do.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  You really do them a favor. The best thing to do is stop them in their tracks.

• 35:42Oprah Winfrey?

  She will stop you, babe. Just say, "Stop it."

• 35:45Speaker 01

  Stop it.

• 35:47Oprah Winfrey?

  She knew how to do that. I will say that. Yeah, I turned 72 this year and I've never felt better in my adult life. What I do know for sure about this seventh decade is that you understand that while you may be closer to the end of your life, you value the time that you've had and you have value for the time that remains, an even greater value, I think. I feel I was here to earn my wings, actually. And I've paid attention and been observant. That's one of the first things that Maya Angelou said to me when we met all those years ago. She said, "I can see that you are a girl

• 36:30Oprah Winfrey?

  and what you are is obedient. You are obedient to the call." Call. So I really felt that in my bones when she said that because I have been obedient to the call. I have a call, you have a calling, we all do. But the question is, will you be obedient to the call? Or will that brought you here to the planet? Or will you resist that and try to tell it what you're supposed to do? So when Maya was in her 70s, I was approaching my 50s. And here's what she had to say about aging. What does 74 feel like?

• 37:14Speaker 01

  It's so wonderful. It is so good. I thought the 50s were hot.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  Until I reached the 60s.

• 37:25Oprah Winfrey?

  Uh huh.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  The 60s are out there.

• 37:28Oprah Winfrey?

  They're out there.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  Woo.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  But then, when I reached the 70s, I now know the 70s. You want to reach the 70s. Everybody, stay alive, reach the 70s.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  I tell you.

• 37:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Because, because does it, do you feel age? You know, this is a society that so puts, you know, age and aging, and we're so concerned about it. But do you feel, is there a point where you say, oh, yes, I'm now an older woman? No.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  There are some things that have not escaped me. Pain has not. Ecstasy has not. Satisfaction has not. Disappointment has not. Fear has not. Courage has not. So there are some things which have not escaped me. So that keeps you young. If you start thinking that you know it, and nobody can tell you anything, you found the one way, and you can call all others false. It's already over. It's already too late. You have become old. At 18, at 25.

• 38:40Oprah Winfrey?

  When you think you know everything.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  But when you really.

• 38:43Oprah Winfrey?

  You know a lot.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Well, I've been around a long time.

• 38:46Oprah Winfrey?

  You do know a lot. You've been around a long time, and you've paid attention. Like, it's so interesting, though, because people say to me,

• 38:53Oprah Winfrey?

  they say, when you call her up and you talk to her, does she talk like she talks when she's?

• 39:00Oprah Winfrey?

  And it is true. Many times I call Maya, and I like, like, just the other day, she's on the morning, I'm like, sitting at my kitchen table, and she just starts a conversation, go, let me get a pencil.

• 39:11Oprah Winfrey?

  Write this down. And while she's talking, and then she goes, are you there, babe? I go, yes, I'm here.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  It seems so clear on my 74th to see a little bit. It seems so clear that.

• 39:27Oprah Winfrey?

  You get clearer as you get older? You do, you get clearer.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  About, you know, a little bit, but not much. Listen, that's not why. I mean, you don't get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser. I believe that.

• 39:42Oprah Winfrey?

  If you pay attention.

• 39:43Speaker 01

  There. If you're there.

• 39:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  But get older because it's fun.

• 39:48Oprah Winfrey?

  It's fun.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  Yes. It's great fun. Now, today I was so, yes, well, you know, the body is going. But I mean, you know that, so what?

• 40:01Speaker 01

  No, no life lives forever, you know? So my knees are gone, okey dokey. And I find that, you know, my hair has changed a lot. And that, and the breasts are very interesting. Yes, well, because they are in an incredible race. They're in an incredible race to see which one will touch my waist first.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  And it's fun. Living is fun.

• 40:39Oprah Winfrey?

  That's fun?

• 40:40Speaker 01

  Yes, that's fun, too.

• 40:41Oprah Winfrey?

  Watching them run for it.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. But you know, if you, if you put it in your mind that it's fun.

• 40:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  It's fun.

• 40:48Oprah Winfrey?

  It's fun.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  But if you think, oh.

• 40:52Oprah Winfrey?

  You know why it's fun? Because you're still here.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Still here.

• 40:55Oprah Winfrey?

  I'm still here.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  I'm still here, and somebody's still calling me darling.

• 40:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Ain't that the.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 41:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, that's the thing. Yeah, you're, somebody's still calling you darling. So in 2013, I spoke with Maya Angelou on "Super Soul" for a two-part special. Would be one of my last public conversations with her. We talked about so many of her lessons, including forgiveness. This is a big one.

• 41:21Speaker 01

  Forgive everybody. Just forgive it. I mean, mind you, we asked the Creator.

• 41:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  To forgive.

• 41:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  Our stupidest actions.

• 41:31Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Cruel, this mean, mean.

• 41:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Mean-hearted thing.

• 41:36Oprah Winfrey?

  And say, God, forgive me.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Forgive me.

• 41:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Or people will say, I'm not perfect yet.

• 41:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. So then you forgive. And it, it relieves you. You are relieved of carrying that burden of resentment.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  You really are lighter. You feel lighter. You just drop that.

• 42:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Drop it.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  So I would encourage her, forgive.

• 42:05Oprah Winfrey?

  Forgive.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  That's the first thing. Then you're free to do other things, to have some ambition and so forth.

• 42:11Oprah Winfrey?

  Because forgiveness, I know you often say, love liberates us, but actually forgiveness does.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Also.

• 42:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  But I mean, you can't forgive without loving.

• 42:21Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  And I don't mean sentimentality. I don't mean mush. I mean, having enough courage to stand out and say, I forgive. I'm finished with it. I had to get to a place where I could forgive the man who had raped me when I was seven years old. I had to get there. And that was a matter of incredible mental gymnastics. And then I had to think of what I had done to other people and see how I'd been forgiven. Whatever I've done, I've been forgiven. And I have to get at least to a place where I can forgive.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  That I don't, don't forget. And I will not be, put myself in a situation where that can be done to me again. But I understand.

• 43:17Oprah Winfrey?

  So as we list all of your achievements, the first black street car conductor, dancer, singer, poet, playwright, film producer, director, actor, civil rights activist, professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University, recipient of more than 70 honorary doctorate degrees, and author of more than 30 books. Is there anything you wanted to have on that list but didn't get a chance to do?

• 43:44Speaker 01

  And one of the things I wanted was to have a daughter. I have a son who is in my heart. Wonderful young man, wonderful person, good human being, daring and loving and strong and kind. I wanted a daughter. And I've taken people's daughters. I have certainly taken you. I took my daughter-in-law. Because I know I'm a good mother. I care and I dare. I care enough to let you go. But I dare enough to follow you.

• 44:23Oprah Winfrey?

  I will say that, too. And I will say, you know, one of my, part of my nature is to be obedient. I'm obedient to God's call. And over the years, when I would call you for advice, sometimes I would take it.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  I know it.

• 44:37Oprah Winfrey?

  Most often I would take it. Most often I took it, right?

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Yes, that's true.

• 44:41Oprah Winfrey?

  And sometimes I didn't. But you have never been the kind of mother that says, I told you so.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  No.

• 44:46Oprah Winfrey?

  So when I didn't take it, and the mistake inevitably happened, you were not the kind of mother to come back and say, I told you.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  But you were the kind of daughter who said, I was wrong.

• 44:56Oprah Winfrey?

  I was wrong. I should have listened. I should have listened. First of all, have you ever tried and failed at something?

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Yes, many times. Many times. You forgive yourself for every failure.

• 45:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Because you tried to do the right thing. God knows that, and you know it.

• 45:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Nobody else may know it.

• 45:15Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Well, because one of the great lessons that I've learned from you, when you know better, you do better.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  That's the ticket.

• 45:20Oprah Winfrey?

  That's the ticket.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 45:22Oprah Winfrey?

  And that's why you forgive yourself.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Yes, ma'am.

• 45:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Because if you'd known better.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  I'd have done better.

• 45:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 45:28Oprah Winfrey?

  One of the things that strikes me most about Maya Angelou's life is how at six feet tall, she was six feet, barefoot, she moved through the world with an unshakable kind of calm and confidence.

• 45:47Oprah Winfrey?

  In one of her poems, she writes about another woman, and she says of that woman, she had a certain way of being in this world. And I think Maya also did. She had a certain way of being in this world, the way she moved and carried herself. I'll never forget the time that I was at a party at her house. I was at many gatherings at her house. She always, used to have a big, huge Thanksgiving dinner with, you know, 100 people coming from all over the country. But I was there one evening when she actually kicked someone out of her house after they made an offensive joke. I mean, it was, it was mind-shattering to see that happen.

• 46:32Oprah Winfrey?

  Because we've all been in the midst of somebody telling a joke that is an inappropriate joke. It shouldn't be said. And you kind of.

• 46:43Oprah Winfrey?

  Or you turn or walk away or whatever, but not Maya. She heard from across the room, somebody telling this joke, and comes across the room to ask them to leave her home. Tell me this. You say words are things and that they're so powerful. Do you have a favorite word?

• 47:03Speaker 01

  Oh, love.

• 47:06Oprah Winfrey?

  Love is your favorite word?

• 47:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe.

• 47:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Are there words that you, Maya Angelou, as a writer, just like the sound of?

• 47:12Speaker 01

  I like murmur.

• 47:13Oprah Winfrey?

  You like murmur?

• 47:14Speaker 01

  M U R, M U R. Yeah, it sounds good, doesn't it?

• 47:18Oprah Winfrey?

  It does sound good.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  Murmur. You can't shout murmur. It is murmur.

• 47:24Oprah Winfrey?

  You can't shout murmur?

• 47:25Speaker 01

  No.

• 47:26Oprah Winfrey?

  The one thing that I think that I have admired and loved about you that I couldn't articulate, it just occurred to me now. I remember once being in your house and somebody was telling a joke. And you were on the other-- we had a party. It was a lot of noise in the room. And they were making, telling a joke. And it was a racist, homosexual joke. And you stopped the party. First of all, I couldn't believe-- I was like, how can she hear that? And she's all the way over there. But you stopped the party and asked the person to excuse themselves and leave your house.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. I say, is this your coat? Did you come with anyone? Both of you, come this way.

• 48:10Oprah Winfrey?

  I know.

• 48:11Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 48:12Oprah Winfrey?

  No, no, no. So and everybody else is like, whoa, what just happened? And then you said to all of us, I will not allow it in my house.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  That's right. It's vulgarity and it's poison. And this is what a person must know. I know there are black people who say, oh, you can use the N-word to me because I'm, I'm black. No, it is poison. All of that, any racial pejorative, sexual pejorative, any of that stuff, is created to make a person less than human. And that means it's poison. Nobody can use it safely. I mean, if poison is poison that you get from a pharmacy and it has P O I S O N on it, and skull and bones.

• 48:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  You can't take that content and pour it into Bavarian crystal and make it otherwise. It's still poison.

• 49:04Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  So and you don't want it cling to the walls, get into the upholstery in your clothes and sooner or later, right into you.

• 49:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Right into you.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Yes, ma'am.

• 49:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, so this is what I want to know. Where did you get the courage to not allow it in your space? Because there have been-- many of you are watching right now. People say things that make you uncomfortable. They start a joke that's gonna be-- you know it's leading down a racial path or homophobic path or whatever. And people just sort of-- people laugh nervously at it because they don't know how to stop it. How do you stop it?

• 49:37Speaker 01

  You don't stop it by doing it immediately. You develop courage. Courage, Oprah, is the most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you cannot practice any other virtue consistently. You can be anything erratically now and then. Kind, fair, true, generous, just blah, blah. But to do that thing time after time. So what you do is you do it in small ways. I mean, if you wanted to pick up a hundred-pound weight, you wouldn't just go--

• 50:08Oprah Winfrey?

  Pick up a--

• 50:08Speaker 01

  You'd start picking five pounds, then 10 pounds, then 20. Well, that's the same way you do with courage. You do the courageous thing, a small one, and you like yourself. And then you do another, two or three. And you like yourself better. And before you know it, you're able to say, excuse me, not in my house, you don't. You don't paint my walls with poison and vulgarity. You will not do it in my house. Out. Is this your purse? Thank you.

• 50:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 50:39Speaker 01

  Bye. I've seen it.

• 50:41Oprah Winfrey?

  I know. Because you believe that words are things.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Yes, ma'am, I know they are.

• 50:45Oprah Winfrey?

  They are things, absolutely.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  You can put some words together and make people want to go to war. Put another few words and make them long for peace.

• 50:54Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  Words are so important. And this is what you take to God. Words. You may not frame them, but God knows your heart.

• 51:04Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  So when you go down on your knees or in your bed or riding in a car and you pray, you're using words. I'm lonely. I'm hungry. I'm lost. I'm in pain. Whatever your words are, help. They are words. They inform not only God, but anybody around you, how you really feel. They are able-- you're able to speak in nuances.

• 51:32Oprah Winfrey?

  So be careful how you use them.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  Yes, ma'am.

• 51:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Because they carry the power.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Yes, ma'am.

• 51:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Yes, ma'am, indeed. Well, after I opened my school in South Africa in 2007, I told Maya that I really believe that that school's going to be my legacy, Maya, because she wasn't able to attend. I think she had the flu at the time and couldn't come. So I left South Africa and came directly back to her house. And I was sitting there and she was making biscuits. And she said to me-- I said, oh, I'm so sorry you couldn't be there because that school is just gonna be my greatest legacy. And she said to me, you have no idea what your legacy will be. I said, I don't know. I do think that the school's gonna be it. Those girls are gonna go on and do really great things. And she said, I said,

• 52:21Oprah Winfrey?

  you have no idea what your legacy is going to be. Because your legacy is never one thing. Your legacy is every life you touch. It's everybody who ever watched a show and made a decision after watching that show and said, I'm gonna leave my abusive husband. I'm gonna go back to school. I'm gonna buy a better bra. Whatever it may be, your legacy is every life you touch. It's not one thing. It's everything. So those profound words have stayed with me. And I hope that they resonate with you because it's how you live every day. It's not just the big things. It's not the big moments.

• 53:06Oprah Winfrey?

  It's not the big awards. It's not the plaque on the door. It's not the promotion in your office. It's not the acclaim. It's everything and every life you touch. It's the woman at the checkout counter at the grocery store. It's the way you treat the guy at the cleaners. It's the way you handle the person who's parked your car and brings your car back. It's every life you touch.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  There's a book called Lessons in Truth.

• 53:37Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow.

• 53:38Speaker 01

  And in the book, there's a line which is, God loves me. And when I came to read it to my then mentor, Frederick Wilkerson, the late Frederick Wilkerson, I read, God loves me. And he said, read it again. And I said, God loves me. He said, read it again. Read it again. And finally, I said, God loves me.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  It still humbles me that this force, which made leaves and fleas and, and stars and rivers and, and you loves me. Me, Maya Angelou. It's amazing. I can do anything and do it well. Any good thing, I can do it. That's why I'm who I am. Yes. Because God loves me and I'm amazed at it and grateful for it.

• 54:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Do you feel carried by the ancestors as I do? Do you feel carried by them?

• 54:54Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 54:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. When you said, when we talked last week about your crown has been paid for.

• 55:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:00Oprah Winfrey?

  Put it on your head and wear it.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Do you feel--

• 55:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:05Oprah Winfrey?

  Do you feel--

• 55:07Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 55:08Oprah Winfrey?

  That your grandmother and her mother before her--

• 55:10Speaker 01

  And great-grandmother.

• 55:11Oprah Winfrey?

  And great-grandmother.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  Who had been born a slave.

• 55:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Been born a slave. Do you feel that you're carried by them?

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I'm responsible to them.

• 55:20Oprah Winfrey?

  Maya has spoken often about that responsibility. Listen to this from 2003.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  Imagine it. Just imagine. Any of us, if we could really think of our great-grandfathers and grandmothers and if put them right in front of us today and say, here you are. Are you pleased with what I'm doing with my life? Am I making you proud? Am I doing all you would like me to be doing? Because a person could say, you're the reason I, I came over here on that boat. You're the reason I stood on the auction block. You're the reason-- I stuck it so that you could exist. Suddenly, life itself is richer. So wherever I am,

• 56:10Speaker 01

  I stand on the stage in front of 10,000 people. My great-grandmother stands there with me.

• 56:17Oprah Winfrey?

  That's the line in the poem Grandmothers that you wrote. One of my favorites. I come as one, but I stand as 10,000. Oh, my gosh. Have I used that line for myself internally on many occasions.

• 56:30Speaker 01

  Because that's who you are.

• 56:31Oprah Winfrey?

  I recited that to myself many times. I come as one, but I stand as 10,000.

• 56:36Speaker 01

  And that's it, you girl.

• 56:38Oprah Winfrey?

  The force of that.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 56:40Oprah Winfrey?

  The force of that. To know that none of us are alone.

• 56:43Speaker 01

  No, ever.

• 56:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Because you've been paid for.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  Already. Thank the Lord.

• 56:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Above all else, Maya Angelou lived her life as a teacher. She said, when you get, give. When you learn, teach. And during one of her last times on The Oprah Show, I asked her about her greatest lesson of all. And here's what she said. But do you have a greatest lesson, Maya?

• 57:05Speaker 01

  Yes, I suppose love is the greatest lesson. Dare to love. Now, by love, I don't mean indulgence. I don't mean sentimentality. I don't mean mush. I mean that condition in the human spirit so profound that it allows us to, to dare to step out on the word of God or on the word, one's own word. It, this condition that allows us to like somebody. We may-- with love, we may be able to look through complexion and see community. That's only with love. So I mean, it may be-- Oprah, it may be that stuff that keeps the stars in the firmament

• 57:48Speaker 01

  or the blood racing through our veins. I mean, daring to care. That is the greatest lesson.

• 57:57Oprah Winfrey?

  So thank you for joining me. Now you have-- Some of Maya's great life lessons in one place. I hope you come back to them whenever you need them. And, you know, she gave me many gifts. Every time I was with her, it felt like a special enduring moment. And she knew that there was nothing she could physically give me. But for my 50th birthday, she wrote me a poem because she knew how valuable words are to me. And so she wrote me a poem. And that poem is, you can find it online and you can find it in her book of collected

• 58:42Oprah Winfrey?

  poems. The poem is called "Continue," but she wrote it for my 50th birthday for me. And it continues to be one of the great gifts that she left behind for me. So I'm going to read it for you, and you can find it for yourself. And I have to say that I think it's, although she wrote it for me, I think it applies to millions of people. And so I've offered it to people for their, you know, birthday gifts, especially for milestone birthdays or milestone moments in people's lives. So this is Maya's words to me. Continue. My wish for you is that you continue.

• 59:25Oprah Winfrey?

  Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness. Continue to allow humor to lighten the burden of your tender heart. Continue in a society dark with cruelty to let the people hear the grandeur of God in the peals of your laughter. Continue to let your eloquence elevate the people to heights they had only imagined. Continue to remind the people that each is as good as the other and that no one is beneath nor above you.

• 1:00:09Oprah Winfrey?

  Continue to remember your own young years and look with favor upon the lost and the least and the lonely. Continue to put the mantle of your protection around the bodies of the young and defenseless. Continue to take the hand of the despised and diseased and walk proudly with them in the high street. Some might see you and be encouraged to do likewise. Continue to plant a public kiss of concern on the cheek of the sick and the aged and

• 1:00:49Oprah Winfrey?

  infirm, and count that as a natural action to be expected. Continue to let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer and let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good. Continue to ignore no vision which comes to enlarge your range and increase your spirit. Continue to dare to love deeply and risk everything for the good thing. Continue to float happily in the sea of infinite substance, which set aside riches for you

• 1:01:34Oprah Winfrey?

  before you had a name. Continue, and by doing so, you and your work will be able to continue eternally. I thank you, Maya Angelou. Our listeners tell us that the podcast is resonating with you and is serving as a bright spot in your day. That means a lot to me. So here's the thing, I would really appreciate it if you like and subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube or wherever you podcast. It's just a quick tap of the subscribe button, and that way you won't miss an episode in your queue. You don't have to pay anything.

• 1:02:15Oprah Winfrey?

  I know subscribe usually means you're paying something, but this time it means you just are notified when there's something new. There are many more to come that we're excited about, so thank you for watching and listening.