Quotes from Maya Angelou

I wish we could stop the little lies. I don't mean that one has to be brutally frank. I don't believe that we should be brutal about anything, however, it is wonderfully liberating to be honest.

still I rise

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking.

My mother said her friends told her that I had once been seen jumping on the street with my son and playing as if I were a child. She said, "No, she was not playing. She was just being a good mother.

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may tread me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room.

When you cross my doorstep, you have already been raised. With what you have learned from your Grandmother Henderson in Arkansas and what you have learned from me, you know the difference between right and wrong. Do right. Don't let anybody raise you from the way you have been raised. Know you will always have to make adaptations, in love relationships, in friends, in society, in work, but don't let anybody change your mind. And then remember this: You can always come home.

Dancing liberated me and even made me feel as if my body had a reason to be

I may never be known as a philanthropist, but I certainly am a lover of mankind, and I will give freely of my resources. I am happy to describe myself as charitable.

If you're going to live, leave a legacy. Make a mark on the world that can't be erased.

I wanted to be a woman, but that seemed to me to be a world to which I was to be eternally refused entrance.

Open your heart, fling your hopes high and set your dreams aloft. I am here to hold your hand.

To make a difference is not a matter of accident, a matter of casual occurrence of the tides. People choose to make a difference.

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with the shades of deeper meaning." I

It wasn't wise to reveal one's real feelings to strangers. And nothing on earth was stranger to me than a friendly white woman.

listen carefully to what country people called mother wit. That in those homely sayings was couched the collective wisdom of generations. When

13. "We survive in exact relationship to the dedication of our poets," (this page) Angelou says of Black people. Do you think that this is true of all cultures? 14. The book title is a reference to a poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Why do you think that Angelou chose this title?

It's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.

To become wondrously successful and to sustain that success in any profession, one must be willing to relinquish many pleasures and be ready to postpone gratification.

Hell, if you're born black in the United States, you're suspect of being everything, except white, of course.

Human beings are like some plants. If we pause a few seconds in our journey, we begin setting down roots, tendrils that entangle other people as we ourselves are entangled.

Take as much time as you need to make up your mind, but once it is made up, step out on your decision like it's something you want.

Being a woman is hard work. Not without joy and even ecstasy, but still relentless, unending work. Becoming an old female may require only being born with certain genitalia, inheriting long-living genes and the fortune not to be run over by an out-of-control truck, but to become and remain a woman command the existence and employment of genius.

In a Time In a time of secret wooing Today prepares tomorrow's ruin Left knows not what right is doing My heart is torn asunder. In a time of furtive sighs Sweet hellos and sad goodbyes Half-truths told and entire lies My conscience echoes thunder In a time when kingdoms come Joy is brief as summer's fun Happiness, its race has run Then pain stalks in to plunder.

Their love informed, educated, and liberated me.