Maya Angelou Quotes

I've conducted the Boston Pops! Imagine that! Me! Maya Angelou! I've sang and danced at La Scala! ~ Maya Angelou

The loss of young first love is so painful that it borders on the ludicrous. ~ Maya Angelou

Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence - neither speed up nor slow down, add to nor diminish - it is an imponderably valuable gift. ~ Maya Angelou

Life is a glorious banquet, a limitless and delicious buffet. ~ Maya Angelou

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. ~ Maya Angelou

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. ~ Maya Angelou

My people had used music to soothe slavery's torment or to propitiate God, or to describe the sweetness of love and the distress of lovelessness, but I knew no race could sing and dance its way to freedom. ~ Maya Angelou

We are the victims of the world's most comprehensive robbery. Life demands a balance. It's all right if we do a little robbing now. ~ Maya Angelou

I got my own back. ~ Maya Angelou

I had read a Tale of Two Cities and found it up to my standards as a romantic novel. She opened the first page and I heard poetry for the first time in my life ... her voice slid in and curved down trough and over the words. She was nearly singing. ~ Maya Angelou

There's racism and sexism and ageism and all sorts of idiocies. But bad news is not news. We've had bad news as a species for a long time. We've had slavery and human sacrifice and the holocaust and brutalities of such measure. ~ Maya Angelou

Look for the beauty in things. ~ Maya Angelou

I would welcome a friendship with Lynne Hinton. I would welcome an invitation to sit down at her table, but mostly I would welcome her next book. ~ Maya Angelou

I am a child of God. I always carry that with me. ~ Maya Angelou

This bed yawns
beneath the weight
of our absent selves. ~ Maya Angelou

The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. ~ Maya Angelou

You said to lean on your arm
And I am leaning
You said to trust in your love
And I am trusting
You said to call on your name
And I am calling
I'm stepping out on your word ~ Maya Angelou

When old folks laugh,
they consider the promise
of dear painless death, and generously
forgive life for happening
to them. ~ Maya Angelou

I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. ~ Maya Angelou

People feel guilty. And guilt is stymieing. Guilt immobilizes. Guilt closes the air ducts and the veins, and makes people ignorant. ~ Maya Angelou

We need much less than we think we need. ~ Maya Angelou

I have found that the platonic affection
in friendships and familial
love for children can be relied upon
with certainty to lift the bruised soul
and repair the wounded spirit ~ Maya Angelou

Be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud. ~ Maya Angelou

Just like moons and suns, With certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. ~ Maya Angelou

It is sad but true that sometimes we need the tragedy to help us to see how human we are and how we are more alike than we are different. ~ Maya Angelou

My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness. Continue to allow humor to lighten the burden of your tender heart. ~ Maya Angelou

What I think it really means is: I'm a teacher. I am a teacher. I teach all the time, as you do and as all of you do-whether we know it or not, whether we take responsibility for it or not. I hold nothing back because I want to see that light go off. I like to see the children say, 'I never thought of that before.' And I think, 'I've got them!' ~ Maya Angelou

It's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody. ~ Maya Angelou

Upon reflection, I marvel that no one saw through me enough to bundle me off to the nearest mental institution. The fact that it didn't happen depended less on my being a good actress than the fact that I was surrounded, as I had been all my life, by strangers. ~ Maya Angelou

Human beings love poetry. They don't even know it sometimes ... whether they're the songs of Bono, or the songs of Justin Bieber ... they're listening to poetry. ~ Maya Angelou

When you do nothing you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better. ~ Maya Angelou

Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin - find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less. ~ Maya Angelou

There are those who say that poets should use her and his art to change the world. I'd agree with that, but I think everybody should do that. I think the chef and the baker and the candlestick maker - I think everybody should be hoping to make it a better world. ~ Maya Angelou

Weeper "I hate to lose something," then she bent her head, "even a dime, I wish I was dead. I can't explain it. No more to be said. 'Cept I hate to lose something. "I lost a doll once and cried for a week. She could open her eyes, and do all but speak. I believe she was took, by some doll-snatching sneak. I tell you, I hate to lose something. "A watch of mine once, got up and walked away. It had twelve numbers on it and for the time of day. I'll never forget it and all I can say Is I really hate to lose something. "Now if I felt that way 'bout a watch and a toy, What you think I feel 'bout my lover-boy? I ain't threatening you, madam, but he is my evening's joy. And I mean I really hate to lose something. ~ Maya Angelou

Glasses clinked and voices rubbed each other. ~ Maya Angelou

I might have it at six-fifteen a.m. just as soon as I get in, but usually it's about eleven o'clock when I'll have a glass of sherry. ~ Maya Angelou

Early on, I was so impressed with Charles Dickens. I grew up in the South, in a little village in Arkansas, and the whites in my town were really mean, and rude. Dickens, I could tell, wouldn't be a man who would curse me out and talk to me rudely. ~ Maya Angelou

Genet suggested that colonialism would crumble from the weight of its ignorance, its arrogance and greed, and that the oppressed would take over the positions of their former masters. They would be no better, no more courageous and no more merciful. I ~ Maya Angelou

Dignity doesn't just mean always being stiff and composed. It means a belief in oneself, that one is worthy of the best. Dignity means that what I have to say is important, and I will say it when it's important for me to say it. Dignity really means that I deserve the best treatment I can receive. And that I have the responsibility to give the best treatment I can to other people. ~ Maya Angelou

A Woman in harmony with her spirit
is like a river flowing.
She goes where she will without pretense and arrives at her destination
prepared to be herself
and only herself ~ Maya Angelou

Lift up your eyes upon
This day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For a new beginning. ~ Maya Angelou

Teachers of my
early youth
Taught forgiveness
stressed the truth
Here then is my
Christian lack:
If I'm struck then
I'll strike back. ~ Maya Angelou

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope. ~ Maya Angelou

I have waited
toes curled, hat rolled
heart and genitals
in hand
on the back porches
of forever
in the kitchens and fields
of rejections
on the cold marble steps
of America's White Out-House
in the drop seats of buses
and the open flies of war ~ Maya Angelou

Don't let the man bring you down. ~ Maya Angelou

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise. Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear, I rise. ~ Maya Angelou

They may have forgotten how badly they treated you, or they may pretend that they have forgotten. But watch: They will come back to you. ~ Maya Angelou

In daring to challenge the unknown with me, she became my first friend. ~ Maya Angelou

If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult. ~ Maya Angelou

Poetry helps my soul escape its encasement. ~ Maya Angelou

My grandmother told me that every good thing I do helps some human being in the world. I believed her 50 years ago and still do. ~ Maya Angelou

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

Each of us, famous or infamous, is a role model for somebody, and if we aren't, we should behave as though we are
cheerful, kind, loving, courteous. Because you can be sure someone is watching and taking deliberate and diligent notes. ~ Maya Angelou

My obsession with pineapples nearly drove me mad. I dreamt of the days when I would be grown and able to buy a whole carton for myself alone. Although ~ Maya Angelou

You can't forgive without loving. And I don't mean sentimentality. I don't mean mush. I mean having enough courage to stand up and say, 'I forgive. I'm finished with it.' ~ Maya Angelou

My education and that of my Black associates were quite different from the education of our white schoolmates. In the classroom we all learned past participles, but in the streets and in our homes the Blacks learned to drop s's from plurals and suffixes from past-tense verbs. We were alert to the gap separating the written word from the colloquial. We learned to slide out of one language and into another without being conscious of the effort. At school, in a given situation, we might respond with "That's not unusual." But in the street, meeting the same situation, we easily said, "It be's like that sometimes. ~ Maya Angelou

I've learned, I still have a lot to learn ~ Maya Angelou

The public library building, in my view, is just a little lower than the church, the cathedral, the temple, the synagogue and the mosque. Within those walls and along those stacks, I have found security and assurance. ~ Maya Angelou

They were assured that they were going to be the only inhabitants of that milk and honey... ~ Maya Angelou

Creativity or talent, like electricity, is something I don't understand but something I'm able to harness and use. While electricity remains a mystery, I know I can plug into it and light up a cathedral or a synagogue or an operating room and use it to help save a life. Or I can use it to electrocute someone. Like electricity, creativity makes no judgment. I can use it productively or destructively. The important thing is to use it. You can't use up creativity. The more you use it, the more you have. ~ Maya Angelou

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them. ~ Maya Angelou

A smart man only tells half of what he thinks. ~ Maya Angelou

Still, when it looked like the sun wasn't going to shine anymore, God put a rainbow in the clouds. ~ Maya Angelou

For a person who grew up in the '30s and '40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, 'Here I am, read me.' Over time I have learned I am at my best around books. ~ Maya Angelou

Death of a beloved flattens and dulls everything. Connections do not adhere so closely, and important events lose some of their glow. ~ Maya Angelou

You have tried to destroy me
and though I perish daily,

I shall not be moved. ~ Maya Angelou

Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space. Invite one to stay. ~ Maya Angelou

The most important thing is to DARE. ~ Maya Angelou

I did what I knew.. when I knew better, I did better ~ Maya Angelou

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

You can see in others what they don't see in themselves and what the world doesn't see in them, ~ Maya Angelou

You do your best until you know better, then you do better. ~ Maya Angelou

To those who are given much, much is expected. ~ Maya Angelou

Have enough courage to love. ~ Maya Angelou

It's hard because people think they have something to lose and the truth is they have everything to gain in trying to love somebody. ~ Maya Angelou

We grow despite the horror that we feed upon our own tomorrow. We grow. ~ Maya Angelou

You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, 'I'm a representative.' ~ Maya Angelou

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

I've always written. There's a journal which I kept from about 9 years old. The man who gave it to me lived across the street from the store and kept it when my grandmother's papers were destroyed. I'd written some essays. I loved poetry, still do. But I really, really loved it then. ~ Maya Angelou

You cannot be consistently fair or just or kind or generous or loving without courage. It is time for you to decide privately, secretly, in your own place inside yourselves, what you will do. You have to come to peace with a peaceful heart. ~ Maya Angelou

I find it very difficult to let a friend or beloved go into that country of no return. I answer the heroic question, "Death, where is thy sting?" with "It is here in my heart, and my mind, and my memories. ~ Maya Angelou

Each of us has a responsibility for being alive: one responsibility to creation, of which we are a part, another to the creator a debt we repay by trying to extend our areas of comprehension. ~ Maya Angelou

That's what you want to do? Then nothing beats a trial but a failure. Give it everything you've got. I've told you many times, 'Cant do is like Dont Care.' Neither of them have a home. ~ Maya Angelou

I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at commensurate speed. ~ Maya Angelou

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty. ~ Maya Angelou

Mostly, what I have learned so far about aging, despite the creakiness of one's bones and cragginess of one's once-silken skin, is this: Do it. By all means, do it. ~ Maya Angelou

If our children are to approve of themselves, they must see that we approve of ourselves. ~ Maya Angelou

I would ask every man and every woman who's had the blessing of having children, 'Would you deny your son or your daughter the ecstasy of finding someone to love?' To love someone takes a lot of courage. So how much more is one challenged when the love is of the same sex and the laws say, 'I forbid you from loving this person'? ~ Maya Angelou

I learned to love my son without wanting to possess him and I learned how to teach him to teach himself. ~ Maya Angelou

I want to write so well that a person is 30 or 40 pages in a book of mine ... before she realizes she's reading. ~ Maya Angelou

In a long meter hymn, a singer - they call it 'lays out a line.' And then the whole church joins in in repeating that line. And they form a wall of harmony so tight, you can't wedge a pin between it. ~ Maya Angelou

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

It may in fact be utterly impossible to be successful without helping others to become successful. ~ Maya Angelou

If I'm here, I'll be trying to be a better human being, a better writer, a better friend and a better beloved. ~ Maya Angelou

Strictly speaking, one cannot legislate love, but what one can do is legislate fairness and justice. If legislation does not prohibit our living side by side, sooner or later your child will fall on the pavement and I'll be the one to pick her up. Or one of my children will not be able to get into the house and you'll have to say, "Stop here until your mom comes here." Legislation affords us the chance to see if we might love each other. ~ Maya Angelou

If a human being dreams a great dream, dares to love somebody; if a human being dares to be Martin King, or Mahatma Gandhi, or Mother Theresa, or Malcolm X; if a human being dares to be bigger than the condition into which she or he was born-it means so can you. And so you can try to stretch, stretch, stretch yourself so you can internalize, 'Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto. I am a human being, nothing human can be alien to me.' That's one thing I'm learning. ~ Maya Angelou

When I think about myself, I almost laugh myself to death, My life has been one great big joke, A dance that's walked, A song that's spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke, When I think about myself. Sixty ~ Maya Angelou

I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh. ~ Maya Angelou

We need the courage to create ourselves daily, to be bodacious enough to create ourselves daily - as Christians, as Jews, as Muslims, as thinking, caring, laughing, loving human beings. I think that the courage to confront evil and turn it by dint of will into something applicable to the development of our evolution, individually and collectively, is exciting, honorable. ~ Maya Angelou

If the pretties were expected to make the supreme sacrifice in order to 'belong,' what could the unattractive female do? ~ Maya Angelou