Angelou began by talking about her age and that she has enjoyed getting older. She said that her 60's were good, she loved her 70's and that she thought the 80's would slow down but they have not. She said that she has a book of poetry and a cookbook coming out in the coming year and that she is hard at work. "I'm just trying to make it through the 80's".
One of the things that she spoke about was that she understands the power of words. She explained that words are things and that you must be careful with them. She said that negative words (racial and sexual slurs, calling people out of their name) can get in all of your stuff like a bad smell.
One of the most powerful stories that she shared was from her childhood. When she was 3 years old, she moved to Arkansas with her brother Bailey to live with their grandmother. Just 4 years later, she moved to St. Louis with her mother, whose boyfriend raped her when she was only 7 years old. She did not tell anyone but Bailey, and when the man was found dead days later, she thought that she had killed him by telling. She stopped talking at the age of 7 and so her mother sent her back to her grandmother.
It was then that she was given a notebook and pencil by her grandmother so she could write everything down. She began reading books and found a love for poetry. She recalls reading "Sonnet 29" by William Shakespeare and saying that she thought that he was a black girl in the south:
When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, and trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, and look upon myself and curse my fate...
This quote made her feel as though Shakespeare knew what it was like to be raped. Although she did not talk, Mrs. Flowers, one of her teachers, took her to the library to read books. When she saw that Angelou liked poetry, she said to her: "You will never love poetry until you speak it". Angelou says that it was then that she started to speak again, and that she has not stopped since.
Another meaningful quote to me was when she talked about how she loved to dance but had to give it up when her knees went bad. She said that was a singer too but didn't love it and wouldn't sacrifice for it. "You can only be great at something you are willing to sacrifice for."
Angelou also offers advice about love:
"I am grateful to have been loved and to be loved now and to be able to love, because that liberates. Love liberates. It doesn't just hold—that's ego. Love liberates. It doesn't bind.'"Lastly, she says that anyone who dares to do something can do it, and quotes Roman playwright Terence:
"If a human being dreams a great dream, dares to love somebody; if a human being dares to be Martin King, or Mahatma Gandhi, or Mother Theresa, or Malcolm X; if a human being dares to be bigger than the condition into which she or he was born—it means so can you. And so you can try to stretch, stretch, stretch yourself so you can internalize, 'Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto. I am a human being, nothing human can be alien to me.' That's one thing I'm learning."
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