Quotes from Maya Angelou

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.

I was raped when I was very young. I told my brother the name of the person who had done it. Within a few days the man was killed. In my child's mind--seven and a half years old--I thought my voice had killed him. So I stopped talking for five years.

I've had people explain to me what one of my poems meant, and I've been surprised that it means that to them. If a person can use a poem of mine to interpret her life or his life, good. I can't control that. Nor would I want to.

Talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it.

There were times when it was said that I had more determination than talent. This may be said of many. It may also be said that life loves the person who dares to live it.

Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.

I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool--and I'm not any of those--to say that I don't write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues.

The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination.

Hatred is the ballast of the rock which lies upon our necks and underfoot.

The Holy Spirit upon my left leads my feet without ceasing into the camp of the righteous and into the tents of the free.

I'm grateful to be an American. I am grateful that we can be angry at the terrorist assault and at the same time be intelligent enough not to hold a grudge against every Arab and every Muslim.

I was grateful to see President Obama's victory speech. I was over the moon to see the audience. There were about 60 percent white voters the other 40 percent were African Americans, Asian, Spanish speaking etc. I wept at that spectacle, it told me that the pundits that continue in our country to try to polarize us, to keep us apart, are not succeeding. Americans are waking up not only to the truth, but the truth in each other. Hallelujah!

I, with millions of other Americans, have the same dream Martin Luther King Jr. had; when I wake up I wish some of the things I dreamt would be true. I wish that little black and white boys and girls would hold hands without being shocked at their nearness to each other and say in a natural way, "we have overcome."

A friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face.

We are not our brother's keeper we are our brother and we are our sister. We must look past complexion and see community.

The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power. The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic admiration.

Love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free. A Brave and Startling Truth.

Joy is a freedom. It helps a person to find his/her own liberation. The person who is joyous takes responsibility for the time he/she takes up and the space that he/she occupies. You share it! Some of you have it ... you share it! That is what joy is! When you continue to give it away you will still have so much more of it.

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

If you don't like something change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain.

If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning 'Good morning' at total strangers.

I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.

The most called-upon prerequisite of a friend is an accessible ear.