Maya Angelou

Quotes

• “To me, the great writers who come from ethnic minorities writing in English come from America. I think the deep, the rea...”
• “This is a very close paraphrase of a quotation attributed to Carl Buehner in a book published many years earlier - "They...”
• “When we come to it We, this people, on this wayward, floating body Created on this earth, of this earth Have the power t...”
• “Gratitude Pillow" ("Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel" -Maya Angelou) ...if anyone told her they were goi...”
• “While some schools and libraries still censor her work for unflinchingly depicting the life she led, it was through my h...”
• “I know when it's the best I can do. It may not be the best there is. Another writer may do it much better. But I know wh...”
• “You develop courage, the most important of all the virtues, because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue...”
• “I still feel you should rock the boat. And if you're not in it, you should turn it over. But not unthinkingly. Protest w...”
• “This night she breathes life into works of Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Richard Wright and Paul Laurence Dunbar, as wel...”
• “I remember a kind of paraphrase, a quote from Maya Angelou; I don't recall the exact words, but paraphrased it kind of g...”
• “Angelou as a child...She'd often quote Shakespeare or Langston Hughes and now adds Gwendolyn Brooks, Mark Twain and Edna...”
• “A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning's greeting and response a...”
• “All information belongs to everybody all the time. It should be available. It should be accessible to the child, to the ...”
• “Singer, teacher, dancer, poet, authoress, actress, editor, songwriter, playwright. Someone has said Maya Angelou's caree...”
• “You did in your twenties what you knew how to do, and when you knew better you did better. And you should not be judged ...”
• “She has become, now a legend," he said...Miss Angelou has a presence that commands attention. Haley called it "Hollywood...”
• “I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa, in Kowloon, China, in Cape Town, South Africa, can say, "You kno...”
• “Nathaniel Hawthorne says, "Easy reading is damn hard writing." I try to pull the language into such a sharpness that it ...”
• “In remembering Maya Angelou, it is important to recall her commitment to the struggle for equality, not just for herself...”
• “Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistent...”
• “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can int...”
• “Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that m...”
• “One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other v...”
• “The day I received a hand written note from Maya Angelou, stating that she had read The Margarita Poems and I should con...”
• “Often misquoted as "Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.", "When you know b...”
• “My dear, when people show you who they are, why don't you believe them? Why must you be shown 29 times before you can se...”
• “We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temp...”
• “Visit us again, Savior.Your children, burdened with disbelief, blinded by a patina of wisdom, carom down this vale of fe...”
• “Yes. When I'm writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we're capable of, how we feel, how we lose and...”
• “I went to sleep last night And I arose with the dawn, I know that there are others Who're still sleeping on, They've gon...”
• “Nearly identical quote attributed to a 1995 TV show, Touched by an Angel : Tess: No, hate has caused a lot of problems i...”
• “I don't trust people who don't love themselves and tell me "I love you." … There is an African saying which is: "Be care...”
• “Out of the huts of history's shame I rise Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wid...”
• “I can become quite angry and burning in anger, but I have never been bitter. Bitterness is a corrosive, terrible acid. I...”
• “This is actually from Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks On the Road, though it is widely attributed to Ms. Angelou's book,...”
• “The Distinguished Annie Clark Tanner Lecture, 16th-annual Families Alive Conference, Weber State University, May 8, 1997...”
• “You were a precious pearl How I loved to see you shine, You were the perfect girl. And you were mine. For a time. For a ...”
• “I walk into a room just as cool as you please, then to a man, they stand or fall on their knees, then they swam around m...”
• “I have need of a friend.There is one and only one who will give the air from his failing lungs for my body's mend.And th...”
• “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor,...”
• “At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one...”
• “You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like ...”
• “Many people wonder where my secret lies, I'm not cute a bill to suit a fashion model size, when i tell them they think I...”
• “You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, ...”
• “Although it appears on U.S. postage featuring Angelou, this is actually a variant quote from the work of poet Joan Walsh...”
• “Buchi Emecheta In Interviews with Writers of the Post-Colonial World edited by Feroza Jussawalla and Reed Way Dasenbrock...”
• “Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or hon...”
• “Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wai...”
• “You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. (1982; quoted in the Introduction by Jeffrey M. Elliot...”
• “Quoted in: Kabir, Hajara Muhammad (2010). Northern women development. [Nigeria]. ISBN 978-978-906-469-4. OCLC 890820657.”