Maya Angelou Quotes And Sayings

All Men Are Prepared To Accomplish The Incredible If Their Ideals Are Threatened.

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.

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.

All Of Us Knows, Not What Is Expedient, Not What Is Going To Make Us Popular, Not What The Policy Is, Or The Company Policy - But In Truth Each Of Us Knows What Is The Right Thing To Do. And That's How I Am Guided.

And If A Person Is Religious, I Think It's Good, It Helps You A Bit. But If You're Not, At Least You Can Have The Sense That There Is A Condition Inside You Which Looks At The Stars With Amazement And Awe.

I Speak A Number Of Languages, But None Are More Beautiful To Me Than English.

The Only Thing Is, People Have To Develop Courage. It Is Most Important Of All The Virtues. Because Without Courage, You Can't Practice Any Other Virtues Consistently.

It's Still Scary Every Time I Go Back To The Past. Each Morning, My Heart Catches. When I Get There, I Remember How The Light Was, Where The Draft Was Coming From, What Odors Were In The Air. When I Write, I Get All The Weeping Out.

I Think A Number Of The Leaders Are, Whether You Like It Or Not, In The Hip-hop Generation. And When They Understand Enough, They'll Do Wonders. I Count On Them.

Whatever You Want To Do, If You Want To Be Great At It, You Have To Love It And Be Able To Make Sacrifices For It.

Writing And Cookery Are Just Two Different Means Of Communication.

I've Read Everything Thomas Wolfe Ever Wrote; My Brother And I Memorized Whole Chapters Of 'You Can't Go Home Again' And 'Look Homeward, Angel.'

The Hope, The Hope That Lives In The Breast Of The Black American, Is Just So Tremendous That It Overwhelms Me Sometimes.

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.

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.

Nothing Will Work Unless You Do.

Living In A State Of Terror Was New To Many White People In America, But Black People Have Been Living In A State Of Terror In This Country For More Than 400 Years.

If You're A Human Being, You Can Attempt To Do What Other Human Beings Have Done. We Don't Understand Talent Any More Than We Understand Electricity.

I Was Very Blessed To Have Family And Friends, But Particularly Family, Who Told Me I Was Not Only All Right, I Was Just Right, So I Believe That My Brain Is A Good One, And It's Lasting Me Very Well.

All Information Belongs To Everybody All The Time. It Should Be Available. It Should Be Accessible To The Child, To The Woman, To The Man, To The Old Person, To The Semiliterate, To The Presidents Of Universities, To Everyone. It Should Be Open.

I Was Born In St. Louis But Lived There Just For A Few Minutes In My Life.

Shakespeare - I Was Very Influenced - Still Am - By Shakespeare. I Couldn't Believe That A White Man In The 16th Century Could So Know My Heart.

Autobiography Is Awfully Seductive; It's Wonderful. Once I Got Into It, I Realized I Was Following A Tradition Established By Frederick Douglass - The Slave Narrative - Speaking In The First-person Singular, Talking About The First-person Plural, Always Saying 'I,' Meaning 'We.'

Though I Do Manage To Mumble Around In About Seven Or Eight Languages, English Remains The Most Beautiful Of Languages. It Will Do Anything.

The Language Of All The Interpretations, The Translations, Of The Judaic Bible And The Christian Bible, Is Musical, Just Wonderful. I Read The Bible To Myself; I'll Take Any Translation, Any Edition, And Read It Aloud, Just To Hear The Language, Hear The Rhythm, And Remind Myself How Beautiful English Is.

I've Conducted The Boston Pops! Imagine That! Me! Maya Angelou! I've Sang And Danced At La Scala!

Courage Is The Most Important Of All The Virtues, Because Without Courage You Can't Practice Any Other Virtue Consistently. You Can Practice Any Virtue Erratically, But Nothing Consistently Without Courage.

If You Find It In Your Heart To Care For Somebody Else, You Will Have Succeeded.

My Mom Was A Terrible Parent Of Young Children. And Thank God - I Thank God Every Time I Think Of It - I Was Sent To My Paternal Grandmother. Ah, But My Mother Was A Great Parent Of A Young Adult.

History, Despite Its Wrenching Pain, Cannot Be Unlived, But If Faced With Courage, Need Not Be Lived Again.

A Wise Woman Wishes To Be No One's Enemy; A Wise Woman Refuses To Be Anyone's Victim.

If You Don't Like Something, Change It. If You Can't Change It, Change Your Attitude.

Words Mean More Than What Is Set Down On Paper. It Takes The Human Voice To Infuse Them With Deeper Meaning.

The Ache For Home Lives In All Of Us, The Safe Place Where We Can Go As We Are And Not Be Questioned.

My Grandmother Took Me To Church On Sunday All Day Long, Every Sunday Into The Night. Then Monday Evening Was The Missionary Meeting. Tuesday Evening Was Usher Board Meeting. Wednesday Evening Was Prayer Meeting. Thursday Evening Was Visit The Sick. Friday Evening Was Choir Practice. I Mean, And At All Those Gatherings, We Sang.

I Read The Bible To Myself; I'll Take Any Translation, Any Edition, And Read It Aloud, Just To Hear The Language, Hear The Rhythm, And Remind Myself How Beautiful English Is.

My Greatest Blessing Has Been The Birth Of My Son. My Next Greatest Blessing Has Been My Ability To Turn People Into Children Of Mine.

My Mother Said I Must Always Be Intolerant Of Ignorance But Understanding Of Illiteracy. That Some People, Unable To Go To School, Were More Educated And More Intelligent Than College Professors.

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.

I Know That When I Pray, Something Wonderful Happens. Not Just To The Person Or Persons For Whom I'm Praying, But Also Something Wonderful Happens To Me. I'm Grateful That I'm Heard.

We May Encounter Many Defeats But We Must Not Be Defeated.

The Most Important Thing I Can Tell You About Aging Is This: If You Really Feel That You Want To Have An Off-the-shoulder Blouse And Some Big Beads And Thong Sandals And A Dirndl Skirt And A Magnolia In Your Hair, Do It. Even If You're Wrinkled.

If We Accept Being Talked To Any Kind Of A Way, Then We Are Telling Ourselves We Are Not Quite Worth The Best. And If We Have The Effrontery To Talk To Anybody With Less Than Courtesy, We Tell Ourselves And The World We Are Not Very Intelligent.

How Wonderful It Is To Be An American. We Have Known The Best Of Times And The Worst Of Times.

In All My Work, In The Movies I Write, The Lyrics, The Poetry, The Prose, The Essays, I Am Saying That We May Encounter Many Defeats - Maybe It's Imperative That We Encounter The Defeats - But We Are Much Stronger Than We Appear To Be And Maybe Much Better Than We Allow Ourselves To Be. Human Beings Are More Alike Than Unalike.

How Important It Is For Us To Recognize And Celebrate Our Heroes And She-roes!

If We Lose Love And Self Respect For Each Other, This Is How We Finally Die.

Music Was My Refuge. I Could Crawl Into The Space Between The Notes And Curl My Back To Loneliness.

We Allow Our Ignorance To Prevail Upon Us And Make Us Think We Can Survive Alone, Alone In Patches, Alone In Groups, Alone In Races, Even Alone In Genders.

Self-pity In Its Early Stage Is As Snug As A Feather Mattress. Only When It Hardens Does It Become Uncomfortable.