American poet (1928-2014)
Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.
MAYA ANGELOU
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
I'm working at trying to be a Christian and that's serious business. It's like trying to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good Shintoist, a good Zoroastrian, a good friend, a good lover, a good mother, a good buddy--it's serious business. It's not something where you think, Oh, I've got it done. I did it all day, hotdiggety. The truth is, all day long you try to do it, try to be it, and then in the evening if you're honest and have a little courage you look at yourself and say, Hmm. I only blew it eighty-six times. Not bad.
MAYA ANGELOU
interview, The Paris Review, fall 1990
There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure truth.
MAYA ANGELOU
attributed, Sheroes
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.
MAYA ANGELOU
interview, The Paris Review, fall 1990
I believe that each of us comes from the creator trailing wisps of glory.
MAYA ANGELOU
interview, Academy of Achievement
Every experience shapes your writing, being stuck in a car on a lonely bridge, or dancing at a prom, being the it girl on the beach, all of those things influence your life, they influence how you write, and the topics you choose to write about.
MAYA ANGELOU
Facebook post, Oct. 13, 2012
Most people don't grow up. It's too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That's the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don't grow up. Not really.
MAYA ANGELOU
interview, The Paris Review, fall 1990
A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true.
MAYA ANGELOU
Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
MAYA ANGELOU
On the Pulse of the Morning
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
Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
MAYA ANGELOU
attributed, Women Know Everything!
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 stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness.
MAYA ANGELOU
interview, The Paris Review, fall 1990
Out of the huts of history's shame I rise.
MAYA ANGELOU
Phenomenal Woman
I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh.
MAYA ANGELOU
Maya Angelou: 365 Quotes and Sayings of Phenomenal Woman
A friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face.
MAYA ANGELOU
Letter to My Daughter
I believe most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.
MAYA ANGELOU
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
It was wonderful to receive from my President, the Freedom Award and to know that I am a member of the group most recently bought and sold with everybody's agreement, and the people who longed for freedom. When I accepted that award, I thought of all the people who had come from all over the world to find freedom in the United States. I accepted the award for African Americans, every slave who got off every boat, every European, and every Asian who came here searching for freedom.
MAYA ANGELOU
interview, Beautifully Said Magazine, Jul. 2012
Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.
MAYA ANGELOU
"Passports to Understanding"
The Holy Spirit upon my left leads my feet without ceasing into the camp of the righteous and into the tents of the free.
MAYA ANGELOU
"Our Grandmothers"
I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.
MAYA ANGELOU
Facebook post, Jun. 6, 2013