American poet (1928-2014)
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
I realized that I didn't get here by myself. I am a child of God and that's a blessing and because I have the blessing of God and the knowledge, I have no modesty because it is a learned adaptation. People are just fooling themselves in trying to fool other people when they say, "Oh me! Oh! I'm modest, I can't do this!" I have no modesty, I have humility. Humility comes from inside out and it says, "Someone was here before me and someone has already paid for me." I have a responsibility to pay for someone else who is yet to come, there is no room in there for ego! I am grateful to God. I am grateful to all my people who have helped me and all the ways they've helped me, the teachers, preachers, rabbis, and priests. Everyone that has helped me, I am grateful and I try to help someone else as often as I can.
MAYA ANGELOU
interview, Beautifully Said Magazine, Jul. 2012
I have a certain way of being in this world, and I shall not, I shall not be moved.
MAYA ANGELOU
Phenomenal Woman
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
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
There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.
MAYA ANGELOU
attributed, The Truth in Words
I've learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life.
MAYA ANGELOU
Facebook post, Mar. 3, 2013
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.
MAYA ANGELOU
interview, The Paris Review, fall 1990
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
Hatred is the ballast of
the rock
which lies upon our necks
and underfoot.
MAYA ANGELOU
"Glory Falls"
Nothing will work unless you do.
MAYA ANGELOU
Facebook post, Jan. 2, 2014
My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.
MAYA ANGELOU
Facebook post, Jul. 5, 2011
Love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
A Brave and Startling Truth.
MAYA ANGELOU
A Brave and Startling Truth
Talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it.
MAYA ANGELOU
attributed, Black Women Writers at Work
Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.
MAYA ANGELOU
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination.
MAYA ANGELOU
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
I long for the time when all the human history is taught as one history, because it really is one history.
MAYA ANGELOU
Facebook post, Feb. 28, 2013
Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God.
MAYA ANGELOU
Facebook post, May 23, 2014
The needs of a society determine its ethics.
MAYA ANGELOU
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
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