Quotes from Maya Angelou

the true nature of the human heart is as whimsical as spring weather. All signals may aim toward a fall of rain when suddenly the skies will clear.

That child would stumble over the pattern in a rug.

See you don't have to think about doing the right thing. If you're for the right thing you do it without thinking.

It's another to the body, and it looks like Louis is going down.' My race groaned. It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped. A Black boy whipped and maimed. It was hounds on the trip of a man running through slimy swamps. It was a white woman slapping her maid for being forgetful.

People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel. ~ From intro to movie: Spinning Into Butter

It is imperative that a woman keep her sense of humor intact and at the ready. She must see, even if only in secret, that she is the funniest, looniest woman in her world, which she should also see as being the most absurd world of all times.

She said, 'No, you learned that you have power - power and determination. I love you and I am proud of you. With those two things, you can go anywhere and everywhere.

Never let white folks know what you really think. If you're sad, laugh. If you're bleeding inside, dance.

Weekdays revolved on a sameness wheel. They turned into themselves so steadily and inevitably that each seemed to be the original of yesterday's rough draft. Saturday, however, always broke the mold and dared to be different.

Parents who tell their offspring that sex is an act performed only for procreation do everyone a serious disservice.

She lived life as if it had been created just for her

You do your best until you know better, then you do better.

She used to say that her secret to life was that she "hoped for the best, was prepared for the worst, so anything in between didn't come as a surprise.

I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I'll be OK.

I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I'll be OK. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me. So I have a special place for every library, in my heart of hearts.

Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can't take their eyes off you.

We must re-create an attractive and caring attitude in our homes and in our worlds. If our children are to approve of themselves, they must see that we approve of ourselves. If we persist in self-disrespect and then ask our children to respect themselves, it is as if we break all their bones and then insist that they win Olympic gold medals for the hundred-yard dash. Outrageous.

Because I was really white and because a cruel fairy stepmother, who was understandably jealous of my beauty, had turned me into a too-big Negro girl, with nappy black hair, broad feet and a space between her teeth that would hold a number-two pencil.

Before he could bring his lips together, his teeth fell, no, actually his teeth jumped, out of his mouth.

I found it hard to think of leaving my books. They had been my elevators out of the midden, and to whom could I entrust such close friends?

In an unfamiliar culture, it is wise to offer no innovations, no suggestions, or lessons.

Youthful cynicism is sad to observe, because it indicates not so much knowledge learned from bitter experiences as insufficient trust even to attempt the future.

Turning off or tuning out people was my highly developed art. The custom of letting obedient children be seen but not heard was so agreeable to me that I went one step further: Obedient children should not see or hear if they chose not to do so. I laid a handful of attention on my face and tuned up the sounds in the church.

It was a large heart with lots of hearts growing smaller inside, and piercing from the outside rim to the smallest heart was an arrow.