Quotes from Maya Angelou

I got my own back.

I became the kind of parent my mother was to me.

At 50, I began to know who I was. It was like waking up to myself.

I'm convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they're stones that don't matter. As long as you're breathing, it's never too late to do some good.

To take a few nouns, and a few pronouns, and adverbs and adjectives, and put them together, ball them up, and throw them against the wall to make them bounce. That's what Norman Mailer did. That's what James Baldwin did, and Joan Didion did, and that's what I do - that's what I mean to do.

Achievement brings its own anticlimax.

I don't think there's such a thing as autobiographical fiction. If I say it happened, it happened, even if only in my mind.

The most important thing I can tell you about aging is this: If you really feel that you want to have an off-the-shoulder blouse and some big beads and thong sandals and a dirndl skirt and a magnolia in your hair, do it. Even if you're wrinkled.

If I walked into the kitchen without washing my hands as a kid, I'd hear a loud 'A-hem!' from my mother or grandmother. Now I count on other people to do the same.

I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So he spent time trying to be all things to all people - one way guaranteed not to be successful or respected in a lion's den. You can't just play around with all those big cats - you've got to take somebody on.

I know for sure that loves saves me and that it is here to save us all.

I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees.

I've never had a dislike for men. I've been badly treated by some. But I've been loved greatly by some. I married a lot of them.

A mother's love liberates.

Money and power can liberate only if they are used to do so. They can imprison and inhibit more finally than barred windows and iron chains.

You rose into my life like a promised sunrise, brightening my days with the light in your eyes. I've never been so strong. Now I'm where I belong.

Here on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your sister's eyes, Into your brother's face, your country And say simply Very simply With hope Good morning.

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.

Cooking certain dishes, like roast pork, reminds me of my mother.

If I have a monument in this world, it is my son.

My mother raised me, and then freed me.

My mother is so full of joy and life. I am her child. And that is better than being the child of anyone else in the world.

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. Please remember that your difficulties do not define you. They simply strengthen your ability to overcome.

You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I'll rise!