The Oprah Podcast - The Life Lessons Maya Angelou Taught Oprah

Episode Date: July 30, 2026

BUY THE BOOK!'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings' 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” Maya Angelou personally wrote for Oprah for her 50th birthday. 

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. What you can do is approve of yourself for living. Approve of yourself. For being alive. For being alive. My belief is you never can leave home. You take it with you.

Everywhere you go. So my past is my present. And everything that's happened in your past is what makes you who you are. I write this moment. That's a... One of the most important lessons I ever learned for you. And that is, when people show you who they are, believe them. Yes.

Absolutely. Well, you know, when you know better, you do better. That's the ticket. That's the ticket. I recited that to myself many times. I come as one, but I stand is 10,000. And that's it. Yeah.

The force of that. That's it. The force of that. Yes, ma'am. 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 because she would say to me, girl, I'm telling you the 80s are hot.

So I'm still waiting to experience that. I learned so many lessons from her. I could, I 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, Ms. Angelo, if you would just give me five minutes of your time, five minutes of your time.

I would really appreciate it for this interview. And she agreed, and I was held my hand out. I had a little time-x 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 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 and 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. 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. Words are things. I'm convinced. You must be careful about the words you use. Are the words you allow 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. It 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. Someday we'll be able to measure the power

words. I think there 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, my mother and father separated divorced, and neither of them wanted me and my brother. 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, 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,

and we really arrived in this village about the size of a studio, the stamp sock and son. 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, we were picked up.

and taken from my grandmother to my mother's people in St. Louis. My mother's people were foreign to me. All of her brothers were highfalutin. You know, we're so this and that. My brother Bailey and I tried to learn and become city kids. But my mother's boyfriend raped me when I was seven. 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 believe 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.

Bailey and I were on the floor playing a game in her parlor. These huge policemen came in Navy Blue Surge suits, and Blue Surge was about half an inch thick in the 30s with big brass buttons. They looked like giants. and they said the man has been found dead and it seems he was kicked to death I thought my voice had killed him

that was my seven-year-old logic so I stopped talking 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. So I stopped. And after a while, I think they just really got tired of the presence of this mad and sullen and silent child.

So they sent me back to my grandma, to mama. The best thing that could have happened. 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 the number two pencil and put a string in that groove. And then the other string, she tied to the spiral 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, about one-tenth the size of my library in my home. But it seemed to me there are 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. 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. But she'd come up with books for me to read. And I love them. I've read Paul Larnstone by James Willen Johnson, Count P. Cullen.

I memorized. I read Edgar Allan Poe. I love Poe so much. I call him Eap 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 in men's eyes? I all alone bemoaned my outcast state

and trouble of 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 about 12 and a half. Mrs. Flowers invited me to her house, 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 and Liffelua's 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 grandma. And Mrs. Flowers came back there 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 round for months. And finally, I went under the house where the chickens go and dirty, so soft because they scratch. 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. So I started talking again. And I'm not stopped. No.

I think Mrs. Flas. And aren't we glad she didn't stop? Mm-hmm. Well, Maya, uh, my uh, Maya, Angelo 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 Cage Word 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're looking at me for? Didn't come to stay, only came to say, happy Easter day. Well, I was just floored by that sentence 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 of that I'd read a book, I know why the Cagebird 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 Cagebird sings,

was that a cleansing and a proclaiming of yourself to the world? I don't think so. I've heard that that's what it was supposed to be. Really? 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, that I never agreed with Thomas Wolf's statement that you can't go home again. My belief is you never can leave home. You take it with you. Everywhere you go. So my past is my present.

And everything that's happened in your past What makes you who you are right this moment? What's her? When you wrote that, did you know that it would do for me and everybody else who's ever read, particularly young black girls? I opened that book. First of all, when you open the first page,

I grew up in the church, raised by my grandmother, doing speeches. When you open the first page, and the first words are, what you're looking at me for? Didn't come to stay, only came to say, happy Easter Day. I thought,

there is a world out there that's about me. Somebody knows about this. It was what it did to me. Oh, thank you. It was just amazing. It changed my life. Because I think it was the first piece of black literature I read. And after that, I couldn't read enough.

Yes. I couldn't get enough. I know. That's why I send you the books by there. Yes. From that wonderful bookstore in Denver, you came to me. Also, and have them have some books. Letterbound, you do, yes.

Well, when you wrote it, I want to know here from your mouth why you know the cage bird sings. 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 trail. Its song is heard on the distant hill 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. 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,

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

Yes, and doubt. And doubt. Sometimes it isn't even strong enough to be loathing, which can be turned around. It's just doubt. It's indecisions, confusion. quite often. It's just, they can't even ask the question, so it's very hard to get an answer. But, you know, all the time we talk about loving ourselves. What does that mean?

Well, you can't love yourself all the time. But what you can do is approve of yourself for living. Approve of yourself. For being alive. For being alive. 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. It is. 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. Oh, wow. It's just, I can't even tell you what it's like, 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. 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 a 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 to two of us chatting in bed in our PJs, and we discussed again many of life lessons, 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 some of my greatest lessons have been articulated by you. I had to learn them myself,

but they were articulated by you. Before we get into that, I must say, to have you in my bedroom where we are from time to time as my daughter. It's 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 don't like 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, and blow into your ear everything I know, everything I've been through.

I wish you could too. But it's pretty wonderful to have a chance to talk to you about courage, about laughter. 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 for me. 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.

Yes. Absolutely. A person says to you, I'm selfish or I'm mean or I am unkind. 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 pout. Let you know. And shows you. I told you. I told you. was unkind.

So now why are you angry? Beware of people who are at your feet? 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 are 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. out here doing my best. This is one you told me today I thought was brilliant.

We were 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, it's someone I know that is true.

I try to live that, but I hadn't articulated it so well. But there's almost nothing I tell you that you don't say, right. Yeah. You already know it. I say that, and then I go write it down. Yes, that's true. Because I want to remember it that particular way. But what I mean is you already know it inside yourself.

Inside myself, yeah. It's just that I put it into words. You talk a lot about Vivian Baxter and Heart of a Woman. What do you think are the greatest lessons she gave to you? One of the greatest was when I was 17. I left her house. She said, all right. You leave this house.

But no, 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 would have to make compromises. That's all right, but don't let anybody raise you. I took that to mean that I was a woman. And that's what she gave me, the idea that I was a woman.

Who'd 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 million-fold 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 any of you who've ever been through that, you know, I know, is there any worse feeling in any kind of relationship 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 floor. 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. And instead she said, stop it. Stop it. I want you to stop it. And I was like, 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 write now. now think is a storm, 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, thank you.

Because I know God has put a rainbow in the clouds and something better is on the other side. I have to say, she didn't always tell me, most often didn't tell me what I want. 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 6th of 1990.

And they were just thoughts that Maya had that she wanted to share with me. It really is a treasure. And there are 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? You're not in it. You're not in it. Yes, exactly. Of course. I remember it. And I remember also telling you that a number of times. Yes. Because no lesson is learned immediately. It took me a long time to get it, didn't it? Yeah. Well, you got it, but you get it on so many levels. You see, there's a phrase that 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 state.

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 tabloid had just vilified.

qualified 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 are 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. 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 perpetrator. Right. 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.

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 click in the neighborhood

or a click in the office. But the lesson is always the same. You're not in it. 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. 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. Yeah.

Not just out, most people don't have courage to just come out and kill you. And kill you. That's true. They will take a little piece of your knee. 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. that blow, bite, and blow. So people do that, and that's my son's phrase, pecked to death by ducks. Pecked to death by ducks.

Have people tried to do that to you? Oh, many times. Many times. I mean, it hasn't stopped. I'm sure that it's happened today. But the thing is, I encourage you. And I have two other people who I consider Daught Austin, the Black Rose in San Francisco

and a girl, a woman in West Africa, Araba. If I could have had daughters, you three would have been the three out of chosen. 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. Not me. 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, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, 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. And I was thinking, oh, she wants me.

Yeah, exactly. She wants me dead. Exactly. She wants me dead. This is it. But I didn't have the courage to do that. I didn't have the courage to say, stop it. 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? Yes, I do. You really do them a favor. The best thing to do is stop them in their tracks. She will stop you, babe.

Just say stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Oh, 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 and what you are is obedient. You are obedient to the call. So I really felt that in my bowl. 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? It's so wonderful. It is so good. I thought the 50s were hot. Until I reached the 60s. The 60s are out there.

They're out there. Woo! But then when I reached the 70s, I now know the 70s. You want to reach the 70s. Everybody stay alive, reach the 70s. I tell you. 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. No. There are some things that have not escaped me. Pain has not.

Ecstasy has not. Satisfaction has not. Disappointment has not. A 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. When you think you know everything. But when you really know a lot, You do know a lot.

Well, I've been around a long time. 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, they say, when you call her up and you talk to her, does she talk like she talks when she's... And it is true. Many times I call them in my head, I'm like just the other day.

She's just on the morning. I'm, like, sitting at my kitchen table, and she just starts a conversation. I go, let me get a pencil. Write this down. And while she's talking, and then she goes, are you there, baby? I'm here. It seems so clear on my 74. To see a little bit, it seems so clear that what...

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

If you're there. If you can be there. your day. Yeah. But get older because it's fun. It's fun. 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? No life lives forever, you know, so my knees are gone. Uki-dokey. And I find that, you know, my hair has changed a lot and that. And the breasts are very interesting. 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.

And it's fun. Living is fun. That's fun? Yes, that's fun too. Watching them run for it. Yeah. But you know, if you put it in your mind that is fun, it's fun. It's fun.

But if you think, oh, yeah. You know why it's fun, because you're just. because you're still here. I'm still here. I'm still here. And somebody's still calling me, darling. Ain't that... Hello.

That's the thing. Yeah, you're somebody still calling you, darling. So in 2013, I spoke with Maya Angelou on Super Soul for a two-part special. It 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.

Forgive everybody. Just forgive it. I mean, mind you, we ask the Creator to forgive. Yes. Our stupidest actions. Yes. Cruelous, mean, mean-hearted things.

And say, God, forgive me. Forgive me. Or people will say, I'm not perfect. Yes. That's right. So then you forgive. And it relieves you. You are relieved of carrying that burden

of resentment. You really are lighter. You feel lighter. You just drop that. Drop it. So I would encourage her forgive. Forgive. That's the first thing.

Then you're free to do other things, to have some ambition and so forth. Because forgiveness, I know you often say love liberates us, but actually forgiveness does. Also. Yes. But, I mean, you can't forgive without loving.

Yes. And I don't mean sentimentality. I don't mean much. 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. I don't forget, and I will not be put myself in a situation where that can be done to me again. But I understand. 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? 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. 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. I know it. Most often I would take it. Most often I took it, right? Yes, that's true. And sometimes I didn't. But you have never been the kind of mother that says, I told you so.

No. 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. But you were the kind of daughter who said, I was wrong. I was wrong. I should have listened. I should have listened. First of all, have you ever tried and failed at something? Yes, many times.

Many times. You forgive yourself for every failure. Yes. Because you try to do the right thing. God knows that and you know it. Yeah. Nobody else may know it. Yeah.

Well, because one of the great lessons that I've learned from you, when you know better, you do better. That's the ticket. That's the ticket. That's it. And that's why you forgive. yourself. Yes, ma'am. Because if you'd known better, I'd have done better. Yes. Of course.

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. 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, kick someone out of her house after they made an offensive joke. I mean, it was mind-shattering to see that happen. 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, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, 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 or things and that they're so powerful. Do you have a favorite word?

Oh, love. Love is your favorite. Yeah, maybe. Are there words that you, Maya Angelou, as a writer, just like the sound of and the... I like murmur. You like murmur. M-U-R-M-U-R.

Yeah, it sounds good, doesn't it? It does sound good. Murmur. You can't shout murmur. It is love. You can't shout murmur. No. 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 it 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, like, how can she hear that? And she's all the way over there. But you stopped the party and ask the person to excuse themselves and leave your house.

Yes, exactly. I say, is this your coat? Did you come with anyone? Both of you come this way? I know. No, no, 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. That's right. It's vulgarity and it's poised. 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 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. Yes. You can't take that content and pour it into Bavarian Crystal and make it otherwise.

It's still poison. Yes. So you don't want, it cling to the walls, get into the upholstery in your clothes, and sooner or later right into you. Right into you. Yes, ma'am. 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, they make you uncomfortable. They start a joke that's going to 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?

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, you'd start pick a five pound, then 10,000, and 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.

Oh, my goodness. I've seen it. I know. Because you believe that words are things. Yes, ma'am. I know they are. They are things. Absolutely.

You can put some words together and make people want to go to war. Put another few words and make them long for peace. Yes. Words are so important. And this is what you take to God. Words. You may not frame them, but God knows your heart. Yes.

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 you're able to speak in nuances. Yeah, so be careful how you lose them. Yes, ma'am.

Because they carry the power. Yes, ma'am. Yeah. Yes, ma'am, indeed. Well, after I opened by 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 going to be my greatest legacy. And she said to me, you have no idea what your legacy will be. I said, oh, no, I do think that the school's going to be it. Those girls are going to go on and do really great things. And she said, I said 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 going to leave my abusive husband. I'm going to go back to school. I'm going to 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, 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 not the acclaim,

claim, 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. There's a book called Lessons in Truth. Wow. 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. I said, God loves me. He said, read it again. Read it again. And finally, I said, God loves me. It still humbles me that this force, which made leaves and fleas and stars,

and stars and rivers 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.

Do you feel carried by the ancestors as I do? Do you feel carried by that? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. When you said, when we talked last week about your crown has been paid for, put it on your head and wear it. Yes. Yeah.

Do you feel... Yes. Do you feel that your grandmother and her mother before her... And great-grandmother. Who had been born a slave. You've been born a slave. Do you feel that you're carried by them? Absolutely.

And I'm responsible to them. Maya has spoken often about that responsible. Listen to this from 2003. Imagine it. Just imagine any of us. If we could really think about our great-grandfathers and grandmothers and 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 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 whatever I am, I stand on the stage in front of 10,000 people. My great-grandmother stands there with me. 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.

Because that's who you are. I recited that to myself many times. I come as one, but I stand is 10,000. That's it, you girl. Yeah. The force of that. That's it. Yes, ma'am.

To know that none of us are alone. No, ever. Because you've been paid for. Already. Thank the Lord. Above all else, Maya Angela lived her life as a teacher. She said, when you get give, when you get give, when you're, you're, you're not. you learn, teach. And during one of her last times on the opera show, I asked her about her

greatest lesson of all. And here's what she said. But do you have a greatest lesson, Maya? 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 much. I mean that condition in the human spirit so profound that it allows us to dare to step. out on the word of God or on the word, one's own word. 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 and the firmament or the blood racing through our veins. I mean daring to care. That is the greatest lesson. 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 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 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. 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 peace. of your laughter. Ha ha!

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. Continue to remember your own young years and look with favor upon the lost

and the least and the lone list. 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 age and 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 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.

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