• Talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it. You can plug into it and light up a lamp, keep a heart pump going, light a cathedral, or you can electrocute a person with it.
• Some critics will write 'Maya Angelou is a natural writer' - which is right after being a natural heart surgeon.
• Lyrical poetry is out for the time being, and something that is called rap or hip-hop is in. It is still poetry, and we can't live without it. We need language to tell us who we are, how we feel, what we're capable of -- to explain the pains and glory of our existence.
• Being a woman is hard work.
• I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.
• Nature has no mercy at all. Nature says, "I'm going to snow. If you have on a bikini and no snowshoes, that's tough. I am going to snow anyway."
• Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.
• There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure truth.
• The most called-upon prerequisite of a friend is an accessible ear.
• If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning 'Good morning' at total strangers.
• I'm a spring leaf trembling in anticipation.
• Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
• The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.
• Achievement brings its own anticlimax.
• Maya Angelou's autobiography borrows the first line of this poem by Harlem Renaissance poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Sympathy":
- I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core.
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About These Quotes
Quote collection assembled by Jone Johnson Lewis. Each quotation page in this collection and the entire collection © Jone Johnson Lewis 1997-2005. This is an informal collection assembled over many years. I regret that I am not be able to provide the original source if it is not listed with the quote.
Citation information:
Jone Johnson Lewis. "Maya Angelou Quotes." About Women's History. URL: http://womenshistory.about.com/cs/quotes/qu_maya_angelou.htm . Date accessed: (today). (More on how to cite online sources including this page)
