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Maya Angelou
Poet and Historian
It was my fortune to have a child when I was 16. I had just finished -- I finished high school three weeks before my son was born. Now, here was my blessing. I refused to go on welfare; I refused to take money from my mother; and when my son was three months old, I moved out of my mother's house and got a room with cooking privileges. I did force myself to read. Read. And I did force myself to work. I have taken my son all over the world. He finished high school in Egypt, where I was working; took his first degree from the University of Ghana, where I was working. I realize this, and this is what I have to say to the young women who already have children: Remember that that is somebody. That's not just an appendage. It's not just somebody you attach to your hip and you hold in your arms. That's a person -- a person who may have the most horrible life if you're not careful, or a person who can have the most glorious life if you're careful. Just remember that is somebody. And that is somebody's child: Your child. And that you are somebody's child. So try to enrich yourself. Don't take "No." Don't take low. And under no circumstances must you accept being battered by anybody, including life.
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Maya Angelou
Poet and Historian
"And Still I Rise," which is a poem of mine that is very popular in the country. And a number of people use it. A lot of black of people and a lot of white people use it. Which begins:
"You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies;
You may trod me in the very dirt;
But still, like dust, I'll rise."
So there is that poem, and it goes on. And then, a poem just for women, which is called "Phenomenal Women," and I love the poem. I wrote it for black women, and white women, and Chinese women, and Japanese women, and Jewish women. I wrote it for Native American women, Aleut, Eskimo ladies. I wrote it for all women. Very fat women, very thin, pretty, plain. Now, I know men are phenomenal, but they have to write their own poem.
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Robert Ballard
Discoverer of the Titanic
Robert Ballard: He died in a car accident. He had been with me in tough, dangerous settings. He worked the deck in storms, where a father wants to not let his son be out there, but he can't say that, because he's got to be out there with everyone else, and to just be terrified that he was going to get injured in the heavy seas, with the heavy equipment. And then to have that all behind you, and take a sigh of relief that he is no longer at risk, and then to have him die the next week, when you weren't looking, when you weren't ready. It's devastating. To try to make that a positive experience -- for you, certainly not for him -- but to make the most out of your son's death is a big challenge.
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Robert Ballard
Discoverer of the Titanic
When I said I was going to find the Titanic, no one believed it. When I said I was going to find the Bismarck, everyone believed it, and then I failed in my first attempt to find the Bismarck. So people expect you to succeed, but they don't want to stick their own necks out, and so risk-taking can be very lonely at times. You know that classic saying, which is very true: "Failure is an orphan, but success has many fathers." I'll tell you, when I'm most at risk, I look around, and there are not a whole lot of people there. But as soon as I succeed, they say, "We were always there." And I say, "Yeah, but 500 miles behind me." You have to learn to accept that. You have to know that when it gets dicey, and there is a lot on the line, you are going to find out who your friends are, not at the party afterwards.
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Sir Roger Bannister
Track and Field Legend
Sir Roger Bannister: To everybody's surprise, I was put in a team. It was a dreadful winter in 1947. Historically, there's never been a winter like it since. The track was frozen. They couldn't have trials. So, I couldn't prove that I could be in the team. My previous best time was about five minutes. You know, won a freshman's race. But, I had been seen shoveling away the snow rather vigorously. So the captain -- and sport is entirely run by students in Oxford -- the captain said, "Well look, just as a third string." That means the third runner who is not expected to do anything. "Why don't we put him in?" And they put me in. Then on the race itself, I just overtook all the rest of the field and won, which at the time was 30 seconds faster than I had done before, but very modest of course, four and a half minutes. That was the beginning of an eight-year process in which every year I improved and then after eight years I was near the world record. And, then on the eighth year, broke it. I had qualified as a doctor six weeks later. I tidied up one or two other races. My record was broken by an Australian, John Landy. Then John Landy and I had to compete head-to-head in what was then called the Empire Games, when we still had a bit of an empire. That is now the Commonwealth games. I then defeated him. So my honor was satisfied. I had another European race and then retired and never ran again competitively.
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Sir Roger Bannister
Track and Field Legend
For example, I knew I wasn't going to be an obstetrician, and there were certain areas of medicine which could be reduced to formulae. You know, "There are six complications of this condition " and once you had mastered that, it was not too difficult where you had to deliver some babies and things. So I would tend to take about two hours off to travel to a track, spend about 35 minutes running, but running very hard and then just have a shower, didn't warm up, didn't warm down, had a shower, would get something to eat and get back to the hospital by two o'clock. So that was really the pattern for several years with, of course, intervals for traveling to matches and team. So, it was a major incursion into my medical studies, and I think that -- although I passed all my examinations the first time and so on -- I did not pay as much attention in depth to clinical medicine as I had to my physiology. But in the long-term, I simply had to catch up after qualifying by studying for the various higher exams which our specialist physicians and neurologists need to do.
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