Maya Angelou

“Live as though life was created for you.”

“Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.”

“No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.”

“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.”

“Some people cannot see a good thing when it is right here, right now. Others can sense a good thing coming when it is days, months, or miles away.”

“Caged BirdA free bird leaps on the back of the windand floats downstream till the current endsand dips his wing in the orange suns rays and dares to claim the sky.But a bird that stalks down his narrow cagecan seldom see through his bars of ragehis wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.The caged bird sings with a fearful trillof things unknown but longed for stilland his tune is heard on the distant hillfor the caged bird sings of freedom.The free bird thinks of another breezeand the trade winds soft through the sighing treesand the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his own.But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreamshis shadow shouts on a nightmare screamhis wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.The caged bird sings with a fearful trillof things unknown but longed for stilland his tune is heard on the distant hillfor the caged bird sings of freedom.”

“Let's tell the truth to people. When people ask, 'How are you?' have the nerve sometimes to answer truthfully. You must know, however, that people will start avoiding you because, they, too, have knees that pain them and heads that hurt and they don't want to know about yours. But think of it this way: If people avoid you, you will have more time to meditate and do fine research on a cure for whatever truly afflicts you.”

“I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'Well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that's rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.”

“Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.”

“Wouldn't take nothing for my journey now.”

“There were people who went to sleep last night, poor and rich and white and black, but they will never wake again. And those dead folks would give anything at all for just five minutes of this weather or ten minutes of plowing. So you watch yourself about complaining. What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it.”

“I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh.”

“All great achievements require time.”

“She comprehended the perversity of life, that in the struggle lies the joy.”

“At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.”

“The dread of futility has been my life-long plague.”

“The intensity with which young people live demands that they "blank out" as often as possible.”

“Oh, Black known and unknown poets, how often have your auctioned pains sustained us? Who will compute the lonely nights made less lonely by your songs, or by the empty pots made less tragic by your tales?If we were a people much given to revealing secrets, we might raise monuments and sacrifice to the memories of our poets, but slavery cured us of that weakness.”

“Of all the needs (there are none imaginary) a lonely child has, the one that must be satisfied, if there is going to be hope and a hope of wholeness, is the unshaking need for an unshakable God. My pretty Black brother was my Kingdom Come.”

“If on Judgement Day I were summoned by St. Peter to give testimony to the used-to-be sheriff's act of kindness, I would be unable to say anything in his behalf. His confidence that my uncle and every other Black man who heard of the Klan's coming ride would scurry under their houses to hide in chicken droppings was too humiliating to hear. Without waiting for Momma's thanks, he rode out of the yard, sure that things were as they should be and that he was a gentle squire, saving those deserving serfs from the laws of the land, which he condoned.”

“Don't let the man bring you down.”

“Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.”

“I hope that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.”

“Making a decision to write was a lot like deciding to jump into a frozen lake.”

“I walk into a roomJust as cool as you please,And to a man,The fellows stand orFall down on their knees.”

“While one may encounter many defeats, one must not be defeated.”

“Women should be tough, tender, laugh as much as possible, and live long lives.”

“I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone.People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.”

“To those who are given much, much is expected.”

“The problem I have with haters is that they see my glory, but they don't know my story...”

“I had read a Tale of Two Cities and found it up to my standards as a romantic novel. She opened the first page and I heard poetry for the first time in my life...her voice slid in and curved down trough and over the words. She was nearly singing.”

“Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it allows me to survive, and better than that, to thrive with passion, compassion, and style.”

“What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat,’.... And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.”

“You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

“The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.”

“When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness... all the good things.”

“A woman who is convinced that she deserves to accept only the best challenges herself to give the best. Then she is living phenomenally.”

“Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence—neither speed up nor slow down, add to nor diminish—it is an imponderably valuable gift.”

“Just like moons and suns,With certainty of tides,Just like hopes springing high,Still I'll rise.”

“I speak to the Black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition--about what we can endure, dream, fail at and survive.”

“No human being can be more human than another human being. I liberate you from my ignorance.”

“That's what you want to do? Then nothing beats a trial but a failure. Give it everything you've got. I've told you many times, 'Cant do is like Dont Care.' Neither of them have a home.”

“The main thing in one's own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry.”

“Each of us has the right and the responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead, and those over which we have traveled, and if the future road looms ominous or unpromising, and the roads back uninviting, then we need to gather our resolve and, carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that as well.”

“That knowledge humbles me, melts my bones, closes my ears, and makes my teeth rock loosely in their gums. And it also liberates me. I am a big bird winging over high mountains, down into serene valleys. I am ripples of waves on silver seas. I'm a spring leaf trembling in anticipation.”

“I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at commensurate speed.”

“When we find someone who is brave, fun, intelligent, and loving, we have to thank the universe.”

“It's in the click of my heels,The bend of my hair,the palm of my hand,The need of my care,'Cause I'm a womanPhenomenally.Phenomenal woman,That's me. ”

“Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware. And the worst part of my awareness was that I didn't know what I was aware of. I knew I knew very little, but I was certain that the things I had yet to learn wouldn't be taught to me at George Washington High School. ”

“You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies.You may trod me in the very dirt, but still like dust, I'll rise.”