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Maya Angelou Quotes
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Maya Angelou was an American poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings , tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim.

She became a poet and writer after a series of occupations as a young adult, including fry cook, sex worker, nightclub dancer and performer, cast member of the opera Porgy and Bess, coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and journalist in Egypt and Ghana during the decolonization of Africa. She was an actress, writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television programs. In 1982, she was named the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was active in the Civil Rights Movement and worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Beginning in the 1990s, she made around 80 appearances a year on the lecture circuit, something she continued into her eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at the first inauguration of Bill Clinton, making her the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961.

With the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou publicly discussed aspects of her personal life. She was respected as a spokesperson for black people and women, and her works have been considered a defense of black culture. Her works are widely used in schools and universities worldwide, although attempts have been made to ban her books from some U.S. libraries. Angelou's most celebrated works have been labeled as autobiographical fiction, but many critics consider them to be autobiographies. She made a deliberate attempt to challenge the common structure of the autobiography by critiquing, changing and expanding the genre. Her books center on themes such as racism, identity, family and travel. Wikipedia  

✵ 4. April 1928 – 28. May 2014   •   Other names مایا انجیلو, 瑪雅安傑盧
Maya Angelou photo
Maya Angelou: 247   quotes 131   likes

Maya Angelou Quotes

“We are missing Michael.
But we do know we had him, and we are the world.”

Maya Angelou book Letter to My Daughter

We Had Him (2009)
Source: Letter to My Daughter

World

“You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.”

Maya Angelou And Still I Rise

"Still I Rise"
Source: And Still I Rise (1978)

Hate

“He thrived with passion and compassion, humor and style. We had him whether we know who he was or did not know, he was ours and we were his.”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

We Had Him (2009)
Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Context: Though we are many, each of us is achingly alone, piercingly alone.
Only when we confess our confusion can we remember that he was a gift to us and we did have him.
He came to us from the creator, trailing creativity in abundance.
Despite the anguish, his life was sheathed in mother love, family love, and survived and did more than that.
He thrived with passion and compassion, humor and style. We had him whether we know who he was or did not know, he was ours and we were his.

Passion

“I did then what I knew best, when I knew better, I did better. Maya Angelo”

Maya Angelou

Variant: I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.

“Glory falls around us
as we sob
a dirge of
desolation on the Cross
and hatred is the ballast of
the rock
which lies upon our necks
and underfoot.”

Maya Angelou book Letter to My Daughter

"Glory Falls"
I Shall Not Be Moved (1990)
Source: Letter to My Daughter

“Faith is the evidence of the unseen.”

Maya Angelou
Faith

“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 book A Brave and Startling Truth

A Brave and Startling Truth (1995)

Love , Truth

“Each time I write a book, every time I face that yellow pad, the challenge is so great. I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody and they’re going to find me out.”

Maya Angelou
Books , Game , Thinking , Time

“We grow despite the
horror that we feed
upon our own
tomorrow.
We grow.”

Maya Angelou book I Shall Not Be Moved

"Glory Falls"
I Shall Not Be Moved (1990)

“Years ago I read a man named Machado de Assis who wrote a book called Dom Casmurro. Machado de Assis is a South American writer — black father, Portuguese mother — writing in 1865, say. I thought the book was very nice. Then I went back and read the book and said, Hmm. I didn’t realize all that was in that book. Then I read it again, and again, and I came to the conclusion that what Machado de Assis had done for me was almost a trick: he had beckoned me onto the beach to watch a sunset. And I had watched the sunset with pleasure. When I turned around to come back in I found that the tide had come in over my head. That’s when I decided to write.”

Maya Angelou

Paris Review Interview (1990)

Pleasure , Books , Reading

“Petulant priests, greedy
centurions, and one million
incensed gestures stand
between your love and me.”

Maya Angelou book I Shall Not Be Moved

"Savior"
I Shall Not Be Moved (1990)

Love

“I am capable of what every other human is capable of. This is one of the great lessons of war and life.”

Maya Angelou

As quoted in Goal Mapping : How to Turn Your Dreams into Realities (2006) by Brian Mayne, p. 84

Life , War

“The needs of a society determine its ethics.”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969); often misquoted as "The needs of society determine its ethics", and with less context than the full statement: "The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the Black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only the crumbs from his country's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a Lucullan feast." The title of Angelou's book comes from the poem "Sympathy" by Paul Laurence Dunbar.

“It is possible and imperative that we discover
A brave and startling truth.”

Maya Angelou book A Brave and Startling Truth

A Brave and Startling Truth (1995)

Truth

“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 see who they really are? Why can't you get it the first time?”

Maya Angelou

As quoted by Oprah Winfrey.
Oprah Winfrey's paraphrase:
When people show you who they are, believe them.
Source: [When people show you who they are, believe them, http://www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/when-people-show-you-who-they-are-believe-them-video, 2016-01-19, Oprah's Lifeclass, Oprah, Winfrey, Oprah Winfrey Network, 2011-10-26, 1, 13, 90, en-us, Oprah Winfrey]
Source: [Book club finale, http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/One-of-Dr-Maya-Angelous-Most-Important-Lessons_1, 2016-01-19, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Oprah, Winfrey, 1997-06-18, 45, en-us, Oprah Winfrey]

People , Time

“If we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls.”

Maya Angelou book A Brave and Startling Truth

A Brave and Startling Truth (1995)

Love , Fear , Soul

“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 time.
Just for a time.”

Maya Angelou And Still I Rise

"Just for a Time"
And Still I Rise (1978)

Love , Girl , Time , Perfection

“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.”

Maya Angelou

As quoted in <i>Interview: How Libraries Changed Maya Angelou's Life</i>, by Angela Montefinise, October 29, 2010

Universe , Time , Personality

“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 gone away,
You've let me stay,
I want to thank You.”

Maya Angelou And Still I Rise

"Thank You, Lord"
And Still I Rise (1978)

Sleep , Night

“A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song”

Maya Angelou

Although it appears on U.S. postage featuring Angelou, this is actually a variant quote from the work of poet Joan Walsh Anglund.
Misattributed
Source: Postal Service releases Maya Angelou stamp with quote from another author, Josh Hicks, 7 April 2015, Washington Post, 9 April 2015 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/04/07/postal-serves-releases-maya-angelou-stamp-with-quote-from-another-author/,

Deep , Bird , Singing

“Nathaniel Hawthorne says, “Easy reading is damn hard writing.” I try to pull the language into such a sharpness that it jumps off the page. It must look easy, but it takes me forever to get it to look so easy.”

Maya Angelou

Paris Review Interview (1990)

Reading

“Years ago I read a man named Machado de Assis who wrote a book called Dom Casmurro.”

Maya Angelou

Machado de Assis is a South American writer — black father, Portuguese mother — writing in 1865, say. I thought the book was very nice. Then I went back and read the book and said, Hmm. I didn’t realize all that was in that book. Then I read it again, and again, and I came to the conclusion that what Machado de Assis had done for me was almost a trick: he had beckoned me onto the beach to watch a sunset. And I had watched the sunset with pleasure. When I turned around to come back in I found that the tide had come in over my head. That’s when I decided to write.
Paris Review Interview (1990)

Books , Reading