Quotes from Maya Angelou

The town reacted to us as its inhabitants had reacted to all things new before our coming. It regarded us a while without curiosity but with caution, and after we were seen to be harmless (and children) it closed in around us, as a real mother embraces a stranger's child. Warmly, but not too familiarly.

Although I enjoyed and respected Kipling, Poe, Butler, Thackeray and Henley, I saved my young and loyal passion for Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson and W.E.B. Du Bois' "Litany at Atlanta." But it was Shakespeare who said, "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes." It was a state with which I felt myself most familiar.

The God of my childhood was an old, white, Vandyck-bearded Father Time, who roared up thunder, then puffed out His cheeks and blew down hurricanes on His errant children. He could be placated only if one fell prostrate, groveled and begged for mercy. I didn't like that God, but He did seem more real than a Maker who was just thought and spirit. I wished for a Someone in between.

I washed walls, polished door knobs and the tiny window. The scales and stench of defeat floated into the pail's dirty water.

I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If pessimism insists on occupying my thoughts, I remember there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed.

She spoke proudly, bodaciously, and often: "We are more alike than we are unalike! That truth is why we can all have empathy, why we can all be stirred when the caged bird sings.

And now the work begins And now the joy begins Now the years of preparation Of tedious study and Exciting learning are explained

I decided I wouldn't pee on her if her heart was on fire.

Tan?mad???n?z bir kültürde ,hiçbir yenilik, tavsiye veya ders önermemeniz zekice olurdu. BilgeliÄŸin esas? sadelikte yat?yordu.

If we tolerate vulgarity, our future will sway and fall under a burden of ignorance. It need not be so. We have the brains and the heart to face our futures bravely. Taking responsibility for the time we take up and the space we occupy. To respect our ancestors and out of concern for our descendants, we must show ourselves as courteous and courageous well-meaning Americans. Now.

Ma vie a été longue, et sachant que la vie chérit ceux qui la vivent, j'ai osé tout tenter, tremblante parfois, mais osant, néamoins

I had agreed with her that I should start collecting the Dial records featuring Bird, Max Roach, Al Haig, Bud Powell, Dizzy Gillespie and others who she said were going to be the 'masters.' Each payday I kept out enough money to pay my own way at Mother's, and spent the rest on records and books.

Without waiting for Momma's thanks, he rode out of the yard, sure that things were as they should be and that he was a gentle squire, saving those deserving serfs from the laws of the land, which he condoned.

On the day we moved from her house, Mother liberated me by letting me know she was on my side. I realized that I had grown close to her and that she had liberated me. She liberated me from a society that would have had me think of myself as the lower of the low. She liberated me to life. And from that time to this time, I have taken life by the lapels and I have said, "I'm with you, kid.

The minister's voice was a pendulum. Swinging for left and down and right and down and left and-How can you claim to be my brother, and hate me? Is that Charity? How can you claim to be my sister and despise me? Is that supposed to be Charity? How can you claim to be my friend and misuse and wrongfully abuse me? Is that Charity?...'now abideth faith, hope and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Harlem Hopscotch One foot down, then hop! It's hot. Good things for the ones that's got. Another jump, now to the left. Everybody for hisself. In the air, now both feet down. Since you black, don't stick around. Food is gone, the rent is due, Curse and cry and then jump two. All the people out of work, Hold for three, then twist and jerk. Cross the line, they count you out. That's what hopping's all about. Both feet flat, the game is done. They think I lost. I think I won.

Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable. Curly

Misery is a faithful company keeper, and Comfort was dissolving under its attention.

Love. And again, see I don't mean, I think love is that condition in the human spirit so profund, that it allows us to forgive, and it may be the energy which keeps the stars in the firmament, I'm not sure. It may be the energy which keeps the blood running smoothly through our veins. I'm not sure, but it's something beyond the explanation. It can be used for anything you can explain. Any good thing you can explain.

The idea of overcoming is always fascinating to me, because few of us realize how much energy we have expended just to be here today.

I swear to you, I'll never leave you again. If I go, when I go, wherever I go, you'll go with me or I won't go.

Not every negative situation can be solved with a threat of violence. Trust you brain to suggest a solution, then have the courage to follow through.

If you don't protect yourself, you look like a fool asking somebody else to protect you. [..] A woman needs to support herself before she asks anyone else to support her.

I took out my first library card...I spent most of my Saturdays at the library (no interruptions) breathing in the world of penniless shoeshine boys who, with goodness and perseverance, became rich, rich men, and gave baskets of goodies to the poor on holidays. The little princesses who were mistaken for maids, and the long-lost children mistaken for waifs, became more real to me than our house, our mother, our school or Mr. Freeman.