Quotes from Maya Angelou

I find in my poetry and prose the rhythms and imagery of the best - I mean, when I'm at my best - of the good Southern black preachers. The lyricism of the spirituals and the directness of gospel songs and the mystery of blues are in my music or in my poetry and prose, or I missed everything.

I thought if war did not include killing, I'd like to see one every year.

A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.

We need to haunt the house of history and listen anew to the ancestors' wisdom.

This is what I am learning, at 82 years old: the main thing is to be in love with the search for truth.

I like to speak on matters which matter to human beings, and almost everything matters to human beings.

I speak a number of languages, but none are more beautiful to me than English.

I refuse to allow any man-made differences to separate me from any other human beings.

He was a simple man who had no inferiority complex about his lack of education, and even more amazing no superiority complex because he had succeeded despite that lack.

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

I admire people who dare to take the language, English, and understand it and understand the melody.

If you're a human being, you can attempt to do what other human beings have done. We don't understand talent any more than we understand electricity.

If you're serious, you really understand that it's important that you laugh as much as possible and admit that you're the funniest person you ever met. You have to laugh. Admit that you're funny. Otherwise, you die in solemnity.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay - and rise!

Listen carefully to what country people call mother wit. In those homely sayings are couched the collective wisdom of generations.

Your crown has been bought and paid for. Put it on your head and wear it.

I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, a woman who teaches by being.

How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!

To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.

I'm a feminist. I've been a female for a long time now. It'd be stupid not to be on my own side.

Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.

I was born in St. Louis but lived there just for a few minutes in my life.

The most noble cause known to man is the liberation of the human mind and spirit.