Quotes by Maya Angelou

Theres a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure truth.

People whose history and future were threatened each day by extinction considered that it was only by divine intervention that they were able to live at all. I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to Gods 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 a commensurate speed.

I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss

Your crown has been bought and paid for. Put it on your head and wear it.

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

To those who are given much, much is expected.

I find relief from the questions only when I concede that I am not obliged to know everything. I remind myself it is sufficient to know what I know, and that what I know, may not always be true.

It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense. We should all be dead. I thought I should like to see us all dead, one on top of the other. A pyramid of flesh with the whitefolks on the bottom, as the broad base, then the Indians with their silly tomahawks and teepees and wigwams and treaties, the Negroes with their mops and recipes and cotton sacks and spirituals sticking out of their mouths. The Dutch children should all stumble in their wooden shoes and break their necks. The French should choke to death on the Louisiana Purchase (1803) while silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails. As a species, we were an abomination. All of us.

I answer the heroic question, Death, where is thy sting? with It is in my heart and mind and memories.

It’s the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I’m a woman Phenomenally.

Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.

You may write me down in historyWith your bitter, twisted lies,You may tread me in the very dirtBut still, like dust, Ill rise.Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? Cause I walk like Ive got oil wellsPumping in my living room.Just like moons and like suns,With the certainty of tides,Just like hopes springing high,Still Ill rise.Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops.Weakened by my soulful cries.Does my haughtiness offend you? Dont you take it awful hardCause I laugh like Ive got gold minesDiggin in my own back yard.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, Ill rise.Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surpriseThat I dance like Ive got diamondsAt the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of historys shameI riseUp from a past thats rooted in painI riseIm a black ocean, leaping and wide,Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.Leaving behind nights of terror and fearI riseInto a daybreak thats wondrously clearI riseBringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,I am the dream and the hope of the slave.I riseI riseI rise.

A certain person wondered whya big strong girl like mewouldnt keep a jobwhich paid a normal salary.I took my time to lead herand to read her every page.Even minimal peoplecant survive on minimal wage.A certain person wondered whyI wait all week for you.I didnt have the wordsto describe just what you do.I said you had the motionof the ocean in your walk,and when you solve my riddlesyou dont even have to talk.

I couldnt tell fact from fiction,Or if the dream was trueMy only sure predictionIn this world was you.Id touch your features inchly. Beard love and dared the cost, The sented spiel reeled me unreal And I found my senses lost.

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

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.

When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what were capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. Im trying for that. But Im also trying for the language. Im trying to see how it can really sound. I really love language. I love it for wate it does for us, how it allows us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and delicacies of our existence. And then it allows us to laugh, allows us to show wit. Real wit is shown in language. We need language.

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.

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you cant practice any other virtue consistently.