Quotes from Maya Angelou

Until recently each generation found it more expedient to plead guilty to the charge of being young and ignorant, easier to take the punishment meted out by the older generation (which had itself confessed to the same crime short years before). The command to grow up at once was more bearable than the faceless horror of wavering purpose, which was youth.

You are the sum total of everything you've ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot - it's all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.

You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn't do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger. You write it. You paint it. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it.

I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.

There are some nights when sleep plays coy, aloof and disdainful. And all the wiles that I employ to win its service to my side are useless as wounded pride, and much more painful.

It takes the human voice to infuse them with the shades of deeper meaning.

You see, baby, you have to protect yourself. If you don't protect yourself, you look like a fool asking somebody else to protect you." I thought about that for a second. She was right. A woman needs to support herself before she asks anyone else to support her.

Still I'll rise.

You should never make someone a priority who views you as an option.

Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?

As I ate she began the first of what we later called "my lessons in living." She said that I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and even more intelligent than college professors. She encouraged me to listen carefully to what country people called mother wit. That in those homely sayings was couched the collective wisdom of generations.

Life likes to be taken by the lapel and told, I'm with you kid. Let's go!

I'm grateful for being here, for being able to think, for being able to see, for being able to taste, for appreciating love – for knowing that it exists in a world so rife with vulgarity, with brutality and violence, and yet love exists. I'm grateful to know that it exists.

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

The sadness of the women's movement is that they don't allow the necessity of love. See, I don't personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed.

To grow up is to stop putting blame on parents

If funkytown was a trailerpark, this guy would be a double-wide.

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.

You can only become great at something you are willing to sacrifice for

If you're not angry, you're either a stone, or you're too sick to be angry. You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn't do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger, yes. You write it. You paint it. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it.

Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn't know before you learned it.

Can't Do is like Don't Care. Neither of them have a home.

If I insist on being pessimistic, there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed.

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.